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JAN  17  1924 


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Division  BLV  i  &S 

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Section 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2019  with  funding  from 
Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Library 


https://archive.org/details/greekreligionitsOOhyde 


flDut  SDebt  to  (Bteece  attO  Rome 


EDITORS 

George  Depue  Hadzsits,  Ph.D. 

University  of  Pennsylvania 

David  Moore  Robinson,  Ph.D.,  LL.D 

The  Johns  Hopkins  University 


CONTRIBUTORS  TO  THE  “OUR  DEBT  TO 
GREECE  AND  ROME  FUND,”  WHOSE 
GENEROSITY  HAS  MADE  POSSIBLE 
THE  LIBRARY 

flDur  to  (5tmt  an&  IRonu 


Philadelphia 

Dr.  Astley  P.  C.  Ashhurst 
John  C.  Bell 
Henry  H.  Bonnell 
Jasper  Yeates  Brinton 
John  Cadwalader 
Miss  Clara  Comegys 
Miss  Mary  E.  Converse 
Arthur  G.  Dickson 
William  M.  Elkins 
William  P.  Gest 
John  Gribbel 
Samuel  F.  Houston 
John  Story  Jenks 
Alba  B.  Johnson 
Miss  Nina  Lea 
George  McFadden 
Mrs.  John  Markoe 
Jules  E.  Mastbaum 
J.  Vaughan  Merrick 
Eeeingham  B.  Morris 
William  R.  Murphy 
John  S.  Newbold 
S.  Davis  Page  {memorial) 
Owen  J.  Roberts 
Joseph  G.  Rosengarten 
John  B.  Stetson,  Jr. 

Dr.  J.  William  White 
{memorial) 

Owen  Wister 
The  Philadelphia  Society 
for  the  Promotion  of  Liberal 
Studies. 


Boston 

Oric  Bates  {memorial) 
Frederick  P.  Fish 
William  Amory  Gardner 
Joseph  Clark  Hoppin 

Chicago 

Herbert  W.  Wolff 

Cincinnati 

Charles  Phelps  Taft 

Detroit 

John  W.  Anderson 
Dexter  M.  Ferry,  Jr. 

New  York 
John  Jay  Chapman 
Willard  V.  King 
Thomas  W.  Lamont 
Elihu  Root 
Mortimer  L.  Schiff 
William  Sloane 
George  W.  Wickersham 
And  one  contributor,  who 
has  asked  to  have  his  name 
withheld : 

Maecenas  atavis  edite  regibus , 
O  et  praesidium  et  dulce  decus 
meum. 

Washington 

The  Greek  Embassy  at 
Washington,  for  the  Greek 
Government. 


GREEK  RELIGION  AND  ITS 


SURVIVALS  OF  p 

(  JAN  17  1924 

BY 

WALTER  WOODBURN  HYDE  X^IGAL 

University  of  Pennsylvania 


MARSHALL  JONES  COMPANY 


BOSTON  •  MASSACHUSETTS 


COPYRIGHT • I Q 23 • BY  MARSHALL  JONES  COMPANY 


All  rights  reserved 


Printed  August,  1923 


THE  PLIMPTON  PRESS  •  NORWOOD  •  MASSACHUSETTS 


PRINTED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA 


MEIS  PARENTIBUS  DILECTIS 


EDITORS’  PREFACE 


THE  SUBJECT  of  ancient  Greek  re¬ 
ligion  is  so  very  large,  in  all  of  its 
manifestations,  that  the  influence  of 
Greek  religion  can  hardly  be  treated  ade¬ 
quately  in  a  single  volume  in  this  Series. 

Therefore,  besides  Professor  Hyde’s  book, 
those  on  Mythology,  Folklore  and  the  Philoso¬ 
phies  of  the  Greeks  will  further  indicate  the 
influence  of  ancient  Greek  religion  on  religious 
life  and  thought  of  later  days. 

The  nature  of  Christianity  in  Greek  lands 
is  one  of  the  most  interesting  phenomena  and 
reveals  very  clearly  the  depth  and  the  power 
of  ancient  Greek  religious  thinking  and  feeling 
which  completely  permeate  the  modern  ex¬ 
pressions.  Our  debt  to  Greece  is  amazingly 
disclosed  in  this  field  of  aspiration,  but  it  re¬ 
mains  to  be  seen  whether  Greek  Christianity 
will  eventually  extricate  itself  from  that  leg¬ 
acy  of  superstition  that  has  been  so  harmful 
and  avail  itself  only  of  the  nobler  qualities  of 
Greek  religion.  This  book  may  draw  the  line 

[vii] 


editors’  preface 


between  the  good  and  the  bad  more  sharply 
than  has  been  done  before  and  thus  point  the 
way. 

The  Series,  “Our  Debt  to  Greece  and 
Rome,”  is  concerned  with  a  dual  purpose,  not 
only  of  defining  the  nature  of  our  inheritance 
but  also  of  weaving  into  the  life  of  to-day, 
more  consciously,  those  elements  that  are  of 
permanent  worth  for  the  life  of  the  twentieth 
century. 


[viii] 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

Contributors  to  the  Fund  ...  ii 
Editors’  Preface .  vii 


I.  Some  Aspects  of  Ancient  Greek 

Religion .  3 

II.  The  Influence  of  Greek  Reli¬ 
gion  on  Early  Christianity: 

The  Greek  Gods  Turned  Saints  41 

III.  The  Greek  Church  Festivals  .  .  86 


IV.  Divination  and  Sacrifice  ....  116 

V.  Demonology:  Nereids,  Genii, 

Giants,  and  Callicantzari  ...  135 

VI.  Demonology:  Lamias,  Vampires, 


and  Were-wolves . 175 

VII.  Destiny,  Guardian  Angels,  Death, 

and  the  Life  Hereafter  .  .  .  193 

Notes  . 225 

Bibliography . 228 


[  ix  ] 


GREEK  RELIGION 
AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


GREEK  RELIGION  AND  ITS 

SURVIVALS 


I.  SOME  ASPECTS  OF  ANCIENT 
GREEK  RELIGION 

HE  RELIGION  of  the  ancient  Greeks 
had  a  long  and  varied  history.  It  con- 


fl  tinued  on  the  higher  plane  of  anthro¬ 
pomorphic  polytheism  for  many  centuries, 
back  of  which  extended  many  more  of  a  cruder 
animistic  past.  During  its  whole  development 
it  was  quite  unchecked  by  tradition  or  revela¬ 
tion  or  by  dogma.  It  adapted  itself  pliantly 
to  the  political,  social,  and  intellectual  changes 
in  the  evolution  of  the  most  gifted  of  peoples, 
continually  borrowing  and  assimilating  new 
and  foreign  ideas.  From  the  sixth  century 
b.  c.  onwards  it  was  profoundly  influenced 
by  poets,  philosophers,  and  artists.  In  brief, 
Greek  religion  was  part  and  parcel  of  Greek 
civilization,  showing  the  same  mobility,  love  of 
freedom,  and  spirit  of  progress  which  we  as- 


[3] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


sociate  with  all  other  phases  of  that  culture. 
And  long  after  the  political  greatness  of 
Greece  had  vanished,  Greek  religion  was  des¬ 
tined  to  influence  Christianity  by  which  it  was 
to  be  superseded.  Nor  is  its  influence  yet  dead. 
For,  as  we  shall  see  in  the  following  chapters, 
many  survivals  of  Hellenic  beliefs  and  prac¬ 
tices  can  still  be  traced  among  the  Greeks  of 
to-day  as  a  sort  of  cryptic  paganism  under  the 
guise  of  Christianity. 

In  this  introductory  chapter  we  shall  briefly 
discuss  some  of  the  characteristic  aspects  of 
this  religion  in  its  developed  form  in  the  fifth 
and  fourth  centuries  b.  c.  We  shall  find  that 
it  differed  essentially  from  most  of  the  religions 
which  dominated  the  ancient  world  or  those 
which  demand  the  reverence  of  mankind  in  our 
day.  We  are  particularly  struck  by  the  ab¬ 
sence  of  certain  ideas  which  are  common  and 
fundamental  to  most  religions.  While  these 
generally  emphasize  certain  dogmas,  the  re¬ 
ligion  of  the  Greeks  was  primarily  not  a  mat¬ 
ter  of  belief  at  all,  but  only  of  practice.  It  had 
no  dogmas,  no  creeds,  no  summa  theologlx. 
It  had  no  sacred  books  to  prove  an  ob¬ 
stacle  to  intellectual  progress.  The  absence 
of  such  books  was  not  only  the  expression, 

[4] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


but  the  condition  of  Greek  religious  freedom. 
Greek  religion  never  consecrated,  as  divinely 
appointed,  certain  ideas  which  belonged  to 
a  stage  of  its  development  only.  The 
Greeks  had,  to  be  sure,  certain  hymns  to 
the  gods,  such  as  the  Homeric  Hymns.  They 
had  certain  prayer  formulae  for  special  oc¬ 
casions,  such  as  the  Athenian  rain-prayer. 
They  had  elaborate  rituals  at  various  shrines 
for  different  festivals,  time-honored  and  punc¬ 
tiliously  carried  out.  Even  certain  views 
about  the  gods,  crystallized  into  legends,  en¬ 
joyed  exceptional  sanctity.  But  even  if  in  this 
sense  Homer  and  Hesiod  to  some  extent  rep¬ 
resented  orthodoxy,  their  poems  never  formed 
a  Bible  and  were  never  regarded  as  the  word 
of  the  gods.  The  Homeric  poems,  while  they 
give  us  an  unforgettable  picture  of  the  human 
gods,  whose  forms  are  statuesque  in  their  defi¬ 
niteness,  were  secular  and  not  religious.  Their 
authority  was,  to  be  sure,  enormous  in  fixing 
for  centuries  the  general  outline  of  ideas  about 
the  gods  and  the  hereafter,  but  these  poems 
were  never  binding  on  men’s  beliefs.  The 
Greeks  never  felt  any  limitation  to  their  re¬ 
ligious  imagination,  and  curiosity. 

The  Greeks  never  had  a  religious  founder, 

[5] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


nor  felt  the  need  of  a  reformer.  Great  teach¬ 
ers  arose,  such  as  the  traditional  Orpheus,  to 
advocate  doctrines  and  rules  of  conduct,  but 
none  was  strong  enough  to  dominate  the  popu¬ 
lar  imagination  by  the  authority  of  an  ipse 
dixit.  Moreover,  the  Greeks  never  had  any 
idea  of  a  general  revelation  of  the  divine  will, 
no  story  of  the  origin  of  the  world  imposed  by 
authority.  Just  because  of  the  absence  of 
such  a  revelation  Greek  religion  never  devel¬ 
oped  into  a  canonical  system  to  hamper  scien¬ 
tific  curiosity.  In  Greece  there  was  always 
a  tendency  to  subordinate  religion  to  civil 
authority.  The  City-State  was  supreme  in  con¬ 
trolling  religion.  It  appointed  the  priests  as 
state  officials;  it  established  and  supervised 
the  temples  and  altars,  and  it  administered 
religious  law  in  the  State  courts.  Thus,  the 
priests,  chosen  by  lot  or  by  the  assembly,  were 
never  the  final  authorities  in  religion.  They 
never  formed  powerful  castes,  as  in  Egypt  and 
India,  able  to  silence  religious  curiosity.  No 
Greek  state  ever  became  theocratic.  If  the 
religious  unit  became  larger  than  that  of  the 
City-State,  a  more  extended  organization, 
known  as  an  amphictyony ,  carried  on  the  inter¬ 
state  religion.  The  priests  were  never  looked 

[6] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 

upon  as  holy,  nor  had  they  any  special  train¬ 
ing.  Physical  perfection  seems  to  have  been 
the  chief  requirement  of  their  office.  They 
were  not  clergymen,  for  they  had  no  parish  and 
gave  no  moral  instruction.  They  merely  per¬ 
formed  the  shrine  service,  a  ritual  which  was 
the  result  of  centuries  of  growth,  and  which 
was  always  changing  and  tending  toward,  but 
never  requiring,  unity  of  belief.  It  never  re¬ 
tarded  secular  advance  or  moral  progress.  On 
the  contrary,  speculation  and  progress  were  re¬ 
garded  as  divine  attributes.  The  Greeks  never 
felt  the  need  of  intermediaries  between  them¬ 
selves  and  their  man-made  gods. 

The  political  particularism  of  the  Greek 
City-State,  the  result  of  tradition  and  espe¬ 
cially  of  the  configuration  of  the  Balkan  penin¬ 
sula,  where  isolated  valleys  are  marked  off  by 
a  network  of  intersecting  hills,  was  reflected  in 
Greek  religion.  As  each  state  had  its  own  con¬ 
stitution  and  laws,  so  it  had  its  own  worship 
and  its  own  gods.  As  there  was  no  national 
state  down  to  Macedonian  days,  there  was  no 
national  religion;  rather  there  existed  a  great 
diversity  of  cults — the  chief  authority  in  reli¬ 
gious  matters  being  the  local  shrine  tradition. 
A  few  shrines,  such  as  Delphi  and  Delos,  slowly 

[7] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


became  recognized  by  the  whole  Greek  world 
and  exercised  a  certain  control  over  conduct. 
But  such  centers  were  exceptional  and  seldom 
made  for  unity  of  religious  ideas  or  conformity 
in  ritual.  In  short,  everything  in  Greece, 
physical  environment,  differences  in  blood,  tra¬ 
dition,  dialect,  customs,  tended  to  variety  in 
states  as  in  individuals,  and  this  variety  was 
nowhere  more  prominent  than  in  religion.  So 
Greek  religion  was  a  very  complex  thing, 
which,  owing  to  the  absence  of  any  theological 
system,  never  became  completely  harmonized. 
Beliefs  remained  vague  and  varied.  But  amid 
all  these  local  and  individual  variations  we 
may  still  trace  a  certain  resemblance  in  the  re¬ 
ligious  psychology  of  the  Greek  states,  an  un¬ 
conscious  tending  toward  similar  beliefs  and 
practices.  As  a  whole,  then,  Greek  religion 
had  a  physiognomy  of  its  own,  just  as  did 
Greek  literature  and  art.  Its  salient  features 
were  common  to  the  whole  spiritual  expression 
of  the  race. 

The  absence  of  a  founder,  revelation,  a  bind¬ 
ing  theology,  sacerdotalism,  and  uniformity  re¬ 
sulted  in  great  freedom.  Every  Greek  felt  free 
to  believe  what  he  would.  From  a  remark  of 
the  Platonic  Socrates  we  infer  that  the  Athe- 

[8] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 

nians  cared  little  what  a  man  believed,  if  he 
were  only  punctilious  in  the  public  worship  and 
did  not  proselyte.  Freedom  of  thought,  how¬ 
ever,  did  not  mean  that  one  could  teach  athe¬ 
ism,  introduce  new  gods,  damage  sacred 
property,  or  deride  the  public  worship.  Aris¬ 
tophanes  ridiculed  the  gods  on  the  stage  and 
Euripides  made  them  detestable,  but  no  one 
could  openly  proclaim  disbelief  in  them  or  re¬ 
fuse  to  join  in  the  public  worship  without 
becoming  subject  to  the  law  of  the  state. 
Socrates  was  paid  to  be  punctilious  in  adhering 
to  all  the  details  of  worship.  But  no  Greek 
was  afraid  of  being  cast  out  of  the  synagogue 
or  priesthood  for  heterodox  views,  if  only  he  re¬ 
frained  from  publicly  teaching  doctrines  at 
variance  with  those  accepted  by  his  state. 
Before  the  days  of  Alexander  it  was  difficult 
and  dangerous  to  introduce  foreign  cults  into 
Greece.  But,  despite  its  conservatism,  so 
largely  imposed  by  the  state,  the  story  of  Greek 
religion  contains  only  a  short  chapter  of  re¬ 
ligious  intolerance.  Anaxagoras,  the  philoso¬ 
pher,  Protagoras,  the  sophist,  Euripides,  the 
poet,  and  Aristotle  were  either  prosecuted  for 
impiety  or  voluntarily  left  Athens.  Socrates 
was  the  only  Greek  martyr.  When  he  had 

[9] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


reached  the  age  of  seventy  years,  known  every¬ 
where  for  his  uprightness  of  character,  he  was 
haled  into  court  as  an  atheist  and  corrupter  of 
youth,  and  was  put  to  death.  In  most  of  the 
cases  cited,  the  motives  of  prosecution  were 
personal  and  political  rather  than  religious. 
The  slaying  of  Socrates  was  unique  and  a  stain 
upon  freedom-loving  Athens,  for  he  was  the 
greatest  glory  of  the  city  which  saw  fit  to  kill 
him.  But  even  here  religious  intolerance  had 
little  to  do  with  the  crime;  it  was  rather  his 
supposed  oligarchical  views  and  the  immediate 
circumstances  of  his  trial  which  were  responsi¬ 
ble  for  the  strange  verdict. 

One  feature  sadly  missing  in  this  religion  was 
the  sense  of  duty  which  a  man  should  feel  to¬ 
ward  his  fellow-men.  Greek  religion  was  con¬ 
cerned  almost  entirely  with  men’s  duty  to  the 
gods,  and  no  other  religious  system  shows  so 
complete  a  separation  of  religion  and  morality 
— ideas  which  tended  to  unite  only  in  late  an¬ 
tiquity,  and  which  in  Christianity  are  indis¬ 
soluble.  The  Greek  gods  were  regarded  as 
neither  perfect  nor  holy;  in  character  and 
power  they  were  removed  only  a  little  way  from 
men.  The  example  set  by  them  was  rarely,  if 
ever,  appealed  to  by  Greek  moralists  before  the 

[  10] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


time  of  Plato.  They  were  fabled  to  have 
fought  in  battle  with  men,  to  have  guided  men 
on  their  journeys,  and  to  have  broken  bread 
with  them.  They  were  believed  to  have  mar¬ 
ried  or  had  amours  with  mortals.  After  the 
heroic  period,  when  heroes  were  thought  to 
have  conversed  directly  with  the  gods,  the  lat¬ 
ter  still  spoke  to  men  through  oracles.  Men 
dedicated  temples  to  them,  offered  them  food 
sublimated  by  the  vapor  rising  from  sacrificial 
animals,  and  carved  them  in  stone,  bronze,  and 
gold  and  ivory.  Men  regarded  the  gods  as 
swayed  by  like  passions  and  ambitions  as  them¬ 
selves.  The  gods  could  deceive  men,  hold  their 
anger  against  them,  be  cruel  and  vindictive  to¬ 
ward  them,  as  they  also  could  be  friendly  and 
helpful.  In  short,  in  their  dealings  with  men, 
the  gods  followed  the  ordinary  Greek  rule  of 
ethics,  “Love  your  friends  and  hate  your  ene¬ 
mies.”  The  idea  of  deifying  great  men,  which 
assumed  such  proportions  in  the  Hellenistic 
Age,  is  merely  an  evidence  of  the  human  char¬ 
acter  of  the  gods. 

The  immorality  imputed  to  the  gods  in  leg¬ 
end  was  a  serious  obstacle  to  the  ethical  prog¬ 
ress  of  the  Greeks.  This  was  a  fact  recog¬ 
nized  by  poets  and  thinkers.  Greek  morality 

[  ii  ] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


was  derived,  therefore,  not  from  Greek  religion, 
but  from  social  conditions.  But  to  the  loftier 
minds,  the  religious  teachers  of  Greece,  the 
gods  became  the  guardians  of  unwritten  law 
and  the  guides  of  conduct.  Sophocles  could 
say  that  “the  gods  never  lead  us  into  evil.” 
Euripides  could  go  farther  and  say  that  “if  the 
gods  do  anything  evil,  they  are  not  gods.”  1 
Certain  sects,  such  as  the  Orphics,  did  incul¬ 
cate  morality  and  preached  purification  from 
sin,  even  if  the  means  to  such  ends  were  gener¬ 
ally  ritualistic  cleansing  and  the  avoidance  of 
certain  foods.  Participation  in  many  of  the 
mysteries  promised  blessings  in  the  life  here¬ 
after,  but  such  promises  were  not  dependent 
upon  having  lived  a  blameless  life.  Rohde 
rates  spiritual  ecstasy  as  the  highest  manifesta¬ 
tion  of  religious  feeling.  This  was  the  purpose 
of  the  Dionysiac  orgies,  but  it  was  certainly 
not  conducive  to  Greek  morality,  since  it  was 
often  attained  by  physical  means,  such  as  li¬ 
centious  dancing,  the  inhalation  of  vapors,  and 
even  drunkenness.  We  have  only  to  recall  the 
Bacchanals  of  Euripides,  which  is  a  glorious 
literary  monument  to  the  sort  of  spiritual  ele¬ 
vation  thus  produced.  Plato  derided  Musseus 
for  forming  no  loftier  conception  of  heaven 

f  12  ] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


than  “eternal  drunkenness.”  How  difficult  it 
was  for  Christianity  to  bring  the  Greeks  of  a 
later  period  to  the  Christian  level  of  morality 
is  shown  by  St.  Paul’s  rebuke  of  the  Corinthi¬ 
ans  for  having  made  the  communion  service  an 
occasion  for  gluttony  and  drunkenness. 
yf  Throughout  the  historical  period  Greek  re¬ 
ligion  was  frankly  polytheistic.  The  tendency 
toward  monotheism  was  found  only  in  the  phil¬ 
osophical  schools.  In  fact,  the  number  of  gods 
received  into  the  pantheon  steadily  grew  from 
the  end  of  the  fifth  century  b.  c.  onwards. 
Thus  we  find  greater  complexity  at  the  end  of 
paganism  than  in  any  preceding  Century.  Nor 
did  the  new  gods  supersede  the  old;  at  best 
they  were  merely  superimposed  upon  them,  so 
that  religious  inconsistency  was  ever  rife. 
The  summary  of  Euripides’  doubts  is  found  in 
the  reflection  of  Orestes  that  “in  things  divine 
great  confusion  reigns.”  2  Side  by  side  with 
>  higher  ideas  there  often  lingered  more  primi¬ 
tive  ones,  the  survivals  of  an  animistic  past 
with  its  vague  personification  of  natural  forces 
and  its  simpler  ritual.  In  later  days  also  an 
older  god  was  often  clothed  with  a  different 
character,  nor  was  this  change  always  for  the 
better.  Pausanias,  who  travelled  over  Greece 

[  13] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


in  the  age  of  the  Antonines,  records  many 
traces  of  such  primitive  cults  that  still  survived 
in  his  day,  such  as  the  worship  of  unwrought 
stones  as  divinities,  and  the  survival  of  human 
sacrifice  in  the  cult  of  Zeus  on  Mount  Lycseus 
in  Arcadia.  Aphrodite  was  worshipped  as  the 
“Heavenly”  and  as  the  “Popular” — in  the  one 
cult  friendly  to  marriage  and  chastity,  in  the 
other  hostile.  In  one  form  of  his  worship 
Dionysus,  the  wine-god,  was  allied  to  the  aus¬ 
tere  systems  of  Orphism  and  the  Eleusinian 
mysteries,  but  such  connections  never  purged 
the  primitive  cult  of  its  orgies  and  savage  rites, 
especially  the  omophagia,  in  which  his  drunken 
revellers  rent  a  living  bull  to  pieces  with  their 
teeth  and  ate  its  flesh  raw,  in  commemoration 
of  the  mythical  death  of  the  god  at  the  hands 
of  his  enemies.  But  we  can  trace  a  mono¬ 
theistic  tendency  among  the  deeper  minds  of 
Greece  from  Xenophanes  onwards.  In  fact, 
Hoffding  is  right  in  saying  that  the  idea  of  an 
organized  hierarchy  of  gods  under  the  rule  of 
one  is  a  “station  on  the  way  from  polytheism 
to  monotheism.”  We  can  trace  the  evolution 
of  Zeus  from  the  Homeric  conception  of  him 
as  king  of  gods  and  men  and  master  of  the 
thunder  and  lightning,  powers  which  he  in- 

[14] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 

herited  from  his  prototype,  the  old  Indo-Euro¬ 
pean  sky-god,  to  the  time  when  finally  his  maj¬ 
esty  called  forth  the  grand  tribute  of  Cleanthes 
as  the  “greatest  of  gods,  god  with  many  names, 
god  ever-ruling,  and  ruling  all  things”;  but  the 
journey  from  Homer  to  such  an  impassioned 
outburst  of  religious  feeling  is  one  of  many  cen¬ 
turies. 

The  Greek  polytheistic  view  of  deity,  then, 
was  in  utter  contrast  with  that  of  the  Jews  as 
expressed,  for  example,  in  the  139th  Psalm : 
“If  I  ascend  up  into  heaven,  thou  art  there:  if 
I  make  my  bed  in  Sheol,  behold,  thou  art 
there.”  For,  instead  of  an  all-embracing  God, 
here  is  a  pantheon  of  many  gods,  each  endowed 
with  peculiar  powers  and  attributes.  All  na¬ 
ture  teemed  with  personal  gods  and  inferior 
daemons  or  potencies.  Subject  only  to  Destiny, 
that  vague  and  impersonal  belief  as  found  in 
the  Iliad ,  but  later  in  the  Odyssey  pluralized 
and  personified  as  the  “stern  spinning  women 
who  drew  off  the  spindles  for  Odysseus  at  his 
birth,”  these  gods  have  full  control  of  nature, 
dwelling  in  the  air  above,  in  the  sea,  on  and 
beneath  the  earth.  Although  they  are  immor¬ 
tal,  they  are  not  the  creators  of  the  world,  for 
they  have  a  beginning,  as  is  related  in  various 

[  15] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


cosmogonies  and  dynastic  legends.  They  are 
innumerable  in  rank  from  Zeus  down.  In  later 
days  the  distinction  between  gods  and  daemons 
was  more  and  more  emphasized,  the  latter  be¬ 
ing  regarded  as  less  powerful  and  more  often 
unfriendly  to  men.  Like  other  primitive  races 
the  early  Greeks  with  their  vivid  imaginations 
peopled  every  remarkable  spot  with  living  be¬ 
ings,  every  stream,  valley,  mountain,  cave,  and 
forest.  The  supernatural  beings  who  inhabited 
such  spots,  the  nymphs  of  water  and  land,  the 
satyrs  and  fauns,  the  river-gods  and  dryads, 
were  merely  the  expressions  of  the  animistic 
view  of  nature  which  the  classical  Greeks  had 
inherited  from  their  remote  ancestors  and  be¬ 
yond  which  they  could  never  go.  Their 
rationalizing  genius,  however,  kept  them  from 
falling  into  the  gross  and  repulsive  absurdities 
which  are  so  common  in  Oriental  superstition. 
It  is  no  wonder  that  these  beings  should  gradu¬ 
ally  have  taken  on  such  beautiful  forms  in  the 
imagination  of  so  artistic  a  race. 

As  we  first  meet  these  gods  in  Homer,  they 
have  finally,  after  long  ages  of  development, 
received  their  definite  forms  and  attributes 
which  were  continued  to  the  end  of  antiquity. 
Even  after  a  more  spiritual  conception  had 

[  16] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


been  evolved  of  the  god-head,  belief  in  this 
naive  anthropomorphism  was  maintained. 
Thus  Plato,  in  the  Phcedrus,  says:  “But  we, 
though  we  have  never  seen  or  rightly  conceived 
a  god,  imagine  an  immortal  being  which  has 
both  a  soul  and  a  body,  which  are  united  for 
all  time.”  3  Homer,  therefore,  represents  the 
end  and  not  the  beginning  of  a  long  evolution. 
Nor  can  we  say  when,  in  this  development,  the 
Greeks  reached  the  anthropomorphic  stage. 
We  know  that  the  Indo-Europeans  before  their 
dispersion  believed  in  gods  who  were  not  per¬ 
sonal  beings,  and  that  consequently  the  Hel¬ 
lenes  must  have  reached  polytheism  in  Greece, 
and  that  the  Olympians  were  developed  out 
of  natural  phenomena  and  the  heavenly  bodies. 
The  later  Greeks  were  quite  conscious  of  the 
fact  that  their  primitive  religion  had  been  the 
simple  worship  of  the  more  remarkable  nature 
objects  and  striking  phenomena.  Thus  Plato, 
in  the  Cratylus,  suspected  that  the  sun,  moon, 
stars,  heaven,  and  earth  were  the  only  gods 
known  to  the  “aboriginal  Hellenes.” 

In  Homer  the  gods  are  almost  completely 
anthropomorphic.  They  are  sharply  defined 
personalities,  colossal  men  and  women,  fairer 
and  stronger  than  mortals,  but  conceived  in 

[  1 7  ] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


their  glorified  image.  This  anthropomorphism 
is  at  times  very  naive,  there  being  hardly  a 
limit  to  the  degree  in  which  the  poet  reproduces 
human  nature  in  his  gods.  They  were  so  hu¬ 
manly  conceived  that  later  artists  could  em¬ 
body  in  their  work  ideas  straight  from  Homer’s 
descriptions.  This  is  shown  by  the  tradition 
handed  down  by  Strabo  that  the  well-known 
lines  from  the  first  book  of  the  Iliad,  which 
close  the  scene  in  which  Thetis  importunes 
Zeus  to  honor  her  son  Achilles,  suggested  to 
Phidias  the  concept  of  his  most  famous  work, 
the  colossal  chryselephantine  statue  of  the  god 
at  Olympia.  These  gods  can  work  wonders 
and  take  on  any  shape  they  will,  although  their 
power  of  transformation  never  degenerates 
into  the  grotesque,  but  follows  the  usual  Greek 
rule  of  “moderation.”  They  are  like  men  in 
the  necessities  of  their  being,  requiring  am¬ 
brosia  and  nectar  to  sustain  them,  sleep  and  “a 
place  in  the  sun.”  Their  chief  occupation, 
apart  from  meddling  with  the  affairs  of  men,  is 
feasting.  They  feel  both  pleasure  and  pain, 
and  are  swayed  by  the  same  passions  of  love 
and  hate,  jealousy  and  revenge,  as  men.  In 
short,  Olympus  merely  reflects  earthly  notions 
of  ethics,  as  it  also  does  of  politics.  The  Ionian 

[  18] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 

bards  did  not  always  take  the  gods  seriously 
or  reverently,  but  often  in  their  lays  used  them 
for  ornament  and  even  burlesque.  Especially 
is  this  true  of  Zeus  and  Hera.  While  Zeus  is 
as  grand  as  his  thunder  in  his  natural  aspect,  he 
falls  far  below  mortals  when  viewed  as  father 
and  husband,  and  Hera  is  pictured  as  anything 
but  a  dutiful  consort.  In  a  passage  at  the  end 
of  the  first  book  of  the  Iliad,  Zeus  threatens  his 
spouse  with  laying  his  “untouchable  hands 
upon  her,”  and  in  another,  Hera  boxes  the  ears 
of  Artemis.  Quarrels  are  frequent  on  Olympus 
and  the  gods  often  mingle  in  human  frays. 
They  wear  the  armor  of  men,  drive  horses  and 
chariots  to  battle,  and  are  wounded.  In  the 
Iliad  Ares  is  a  cowardly  Thracian,  while  Aph¬ 
rodite  is  rebuked  for  entering  the  struggle 
before  Troy.  Athena  attacks  the  god  of  war 
during  the  melee  with  a  stone,  until  Aphrodite 
leads  him  away  by  the  hand  “groaning  con¬ 
tinually.”  Even  then  Athena  pursues  and 
wounds  him.  Ares  and  Aphrodite  are  the  sub¬ 
jects  of  a  very  melodramatic  scene  in  a  famous 
passage  of  the  Odyssey.  In  brief,  only  Apollo, 
Athena,  and  Poseidon  are  respectfully  handled 
by  the  Homeric  poems.  Gladstone  summed 
up  the  matter  strikingly,  when  he  said  that 

[19] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


none  of  Homer’s  gods  was  as  good  as  the  swine¬ 
herd  Eumaeus. 

Such  unedifying  stories  aroused  the  pro¬ 
tests  of  the  philosophers  beginning  with  Xen¬ 
ophanes  and  culminating  with  Plato,  who  ex¬ 
cluded  Homer  from  his  ideal  State.  Later  still, 
the  Church  Fathers,  beginning  with  Tertullian, 
were  zealous  in  quoting  immoral  passages  in 
their  denunciation  of  paganism.  Of  course  the 
blend  of  religious  ideas  of  the  indigenous  Medi¬ 
terraneans  and  the  invading  Hellenes  from  the 
North  explains  many  of  these  incongruities. 
The  nearer  the  Olympians  approach  the  old 
Mediterranean  nature  gods,  the  more  reverend 
do  they  become.  We  smile  at  the  lame  smith 
of  the  gods  puffing  through  the  halls  of 
Olympus  as  he  pours  wine  for  the  immortals, 
but  we  find  Hephaestus,  the  old  fire  deity,  a 
truly  majestic  figure  when  in  combat  with  the 
river-god  Xanthus.  The  higher  gods  are  no 
longer  merely  nature’s  powers,  like  the  person¬ 
alities  of  the  Vedas.  Zeus,  whose  name  and 
cult  show  survivals  of  early  animistic  concep¬ 
tions  of  the  divine  sky — for  he  is  cloud-gath¬ 
erer,  thunderer,  hurler  of  the  lightning,  and  lord 
of  the  storm-wind — is  something  more  than 
this  in  Homer.  Nor  is  Apollo  any  longer  the 

[20] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 

sun,  nor  Artemis  the  moon.  These  and  all 
the  others  were  personalities  as  real  to  the  old 
Greeks  as  Jesus  or  Mary  are  to  Christians.  A 
few  of  the  inferior  divinities  or  daemons,  the 
nymphs,  fauns,  river-gods,  wind-gods,  remained 
pure  nature  powers,  and  some  of  them  never 
became  fully  anthropomorphic  even  at  a  later 
time.  However,  despite  the  levity  displayed 
in  some  parts  of  the  Homeric  poems,  scenes 
fabricated  chiefly  by  the  minstrels  whose  busi¬ 
ness  it  was  to  amuse,  we  must  add  that  the 
deeper  utterances  show  us  grand  and  sublime 
concepts  of  the  gods.  Especially  is  this  true 
of  Zeus,  who,  though  jealous  and  revengeful 
like  Jahveh,  is  still  a  god  of  righteousness  and 
pity  in  his  dealings  with  men.  In  the  opening 
lines  of  the  Odyssey,  it  is  not  the  gods,  but  the 
wickedness  of  men  themselves  which  is  said  to 
bring  evil  on  earth. 

The  Homeric  system,  while  it  tells  us  much 
about  theology  and  ritual,  gives  us  only  a  faint 
idea  of  eschatology.  If  we  except  certain  late 
additions  to  the  poems,  we  find  that  they  are 
little  concerned  with  the  life  of  the  soul  here¬ 
after,  and  tell  us  nothing  of  the  cult  of  the 
dead  nor  the  need  of  propitiating  ghosts.  But 
we  know  that  the  Greeks  from  very  early  times 

[21] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


believed,  as  all  primitive  peoples  do,  that  each 
man  had  a  soul  which  inhabited  the  body  as  its 
life-spirit,  and  that  this  soul  survived  the  dis¬ 
solution  of  the  body,  and  either  departed  to 
a  shadowy  realm  where  it  passed  a  mournful 
existence,  or  still  hovered  about  the  tomb.  In 
either  case  it  needed  offerings  from  surviving 
relatives,  and  if  proper  burial  rites  were  not 
performed,  it  was  able  to  harm  the  living. 
Hence,  throughout  the  history  of  Greek  war¬ 
fare,  enemies  as  well  as  allies  were  scrupulously 
buried,  and  a  truceless  war,  in  which  no  oppor¬ 
tunity  was  given  for  the  burial  of  the  dead,  was 
regarded  as  utterly  impious.  The  tombs  ex¬ 
cavated  by  Schliemann  at  Mycenae  were  found 
provided  with  objects  of  gold  and  silver,  which 
show  that  the  soul  was  believed  to  live  almost 
the  same  life  hereafter  that  it  had  lived  on 
earth.  Gradually  the  worship  of  the  dead 
grew,  and  a  special  class  of  the  dead  so  deified 
became  heroes,  an  idea  which  was  later  to  as¬ 
sume  great  proportions.  The  fear  of  the 
ghost-world  seems  to  have  grown  strong  by  the 
seventh  century  b.  c.,  and  we  have  a  reflection 
of  it  in  the  later  strata  of  the  Odyssey ,  es¬ 
pecially  in  the  Necyia  or  Descent  into  Hell  of 
Odysseus  in  the  eleventh  book,  and  in  a  scene 

[  22  ] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


copied  from  it  at  the  opening  of  the  last  book, 
where  the  dead  suitors  of  Penelope  are  es¬ 
corted  down  the  dank  ways  by  Hermes. 

The  Necyia,  the  most  striking  episode  in 
the  poems,  seems  to  have  little  in  common  with 
the  Homeric  picture  of  religion,  but  rather  to 
be  a  recrudescence  of  earlier  beliefs.  Wilhelm 
Christ  believed  it  was  influenced  by  Egyptian 
ideas.  The  catalogue  of  famous  women  seems 
to  be  the  composition  of  a  bard  of  the  Hesiodic 
school.  The  picture  of  Hades,  which  Odys¬ 
seus,  seated  at  the  trench  without,  did  not 
enter,  and  especially  the  description  of  retribu¬ 
tive  punishments  meted  out  by  Minos  to 
certain  great  sinners — Tantalus,  Tityus,  and 
Sisyphus — are  quite  out  of  harmony  with  the 
Homeric  spirit,  which  does  not  reward  good 
men  nor  punish  bad  ones.  The  last  lines  have 
been  ascribed  to  late  rhapsodists,  perhaps 
rightly  to  Onomacritus,  the  poet  of  the  court  of 
Pisistratus,  who,  in  the  belief  of  Wilamowitz, 
took  the  scenes  from  Orphism,  which  taught 
that  only  initiated  and  purified  souls  could 
escape  the  torments  of  Hell. 

The  Necyia  paints  in  gloomy  hues  the  realm 
of  king  Hades  and  his  queen  Persephone. 
Ever  afterwards  the  awfulness  of  death  gath- 

[23] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


ered  around  these  rulers  of  the  shades,  who 
alone  of  all  the  gods  were  implacable,  and 
whose  favor  could  be  invoked  by  mortals  only 
to  wreak  vengeance  on  enemies.  Homer’s  pic¬ 
ture  of  life  is  cheerless  and  melancholy,  but  is 
far  preferable  to  death,  which  was  regarded  as 
the  worst  of  all  fates.  If  man  were  merely  the 
“plaything  of  the  gods,”  as  Plato  expresses  it, 
there  was  no  hope  that  his  wrongs  would  be 
righted  hereafter,  and  no  promise  of  reward 
was  held  out  to  him  who  had  lived  a  righteous 
life.  As  Gruppe  has  said:  “Behind  the  woe 
in  which  he  thinks  he  lives,  the  Homeric  Greek 
sees  a  greater,  never-ending  woe  threatening 
him  in  the  future.”  4  For  of  all  the  fancies  con¬ 
jured  up  by  the  fears  of  men  about  their  fu¬ 
ture  state  none  is  more  hopeless  than,  that  de¬ 
picted  here.  Erebus,  the  realm  of  king  Hades, 
lies  on  the  western  side  of  Ocean  in  the  land  of 
the  Cimmerians  who  dwelt  in  mist — its  en¬ 
trance  amid  the  poplar  and  willow  groves  of 
Persephone.  Tartarus,  the  prototype  of  Mil¬ 
ton’s  Hell,  is  a  gloomy  abyss  beneath  the  earth 
where  rebel  Titans  are  imprisoned.  The  Ely- 
sian  Fields  are  only  mentioned  once  in  the 
poems  as  the  germ  of  the  later  Isles  of  the 
Blessed,  which  were  not  definitely  conceived 

[  24  ] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


until  the  time  of  Hesiod.  The  mead  of  aspho¬ 
del,  upon  which  the  shadowy  spirits  tread,  is 
frequently  mentioned.  The  gray  leaves  and 
yellow  blossoms  of  this  plant  were,  perhaps, 
symbolic  of  the  pallor  of  death  and  gloom  of 
the  underworld.  It  was  commonly  planted  on 
Greek  graves  and  later  was  connected  with  the 
cult  of  Persephone.  Homer’s  heroes,  good  and 
bad  alike,  are  sent  to  this  cheerless  abode, 
where  their  existence  is  even  more  terrible  than 
their  dwelling-place. 

Rohde  remarks  that  it  is  wrong  to  speak  of  a 
future  life  at  all  in  Homer’s  account,  for  the 
spirits  lead  only  a  shadowy  copy  of  their  life 
on  earth,  one  nearly  as  neutral  as  Sheol. 
Charon,  the  ferryman,  is  not  mentioned,  nor 
the  river  Lethe.  The  “brazen-voiced  hound  of 
Hades,”  fifty-headed,  relentless,  and  strong, 
first  appears  in  Hesiod.  The  “down-flowing 
water  of  the  Styx,  the  greatest  and  most  dread 
oath  for  the  blessed  gods,”  is  mentioned  only 
twice.  The  one  ray  of  light  in  this  dismal 
state  is  that  it  is  not  everlasting,  since  Odys¬ 
seus  sees  no  ghost  older  than  the  second  or 
third  generation  before  his  time.  Pindar’s  ac¬ 
count  of  the  dead  entertaining  themselves 
with  horse  races  and  athletic  sports,  with  games 

[25] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


of  dice  and  music  of  the  harp,  has  no  counter¬ 
part  here.  The  ghost-world  had  gradually  im¬ 
proved  by  his  day.  The  very  utterance  of  the 
“strengthless  heads  of  the  dead”  is  only  an  in¬ 
articulate  squeak,  which  the  poet  compares 
with  the  gibbering  of  bats.  Their  spectral 
forms,  bereft  of  bone  and  sinew,  “sweep 
shadow-like  around,”  and  all,  except  the  old 
Theban  seer  Tiresias,  have  forgotten  their 
earthly  existence,  and  can  be  recalled  to  mo¬ 
mentary  consciousness  only  by  drinking  the 
blood  of  the  victim  slam  by  Odysseus.  Here 
there  is  neither  rest  nor  peace,  joy  nor  hap¬ 
piness.  Amid  such  gruesome  surroundings 
Achilles  could  well  answer  Odysseus’  praise  for 
his  former  renown  with  these  words:  “Nay, 
speak  not  comfortably  to  me  of  death,  oh  great 
Odysseus.  Rather  would  I  live  on  ground  as 
the  hireling  of  another,  with  a  landless  man 
who  had  no  great  livelihood,  than  bear  sway 
among  all  the  dead  that  be  departed.”  5 

It  is  no  wonder,  then,  that  the  drab  features 
of  such  an  existence  should  have  called  forth 
protests  which  proclaimed  a  definite  hope  of 
future  happiness  and  a  less  definite  fear  of  fu¬ 
ture  misery.  The  strife  for  existence  was  hard. 
Hesiod  must  have  echoed  the  groans  of  many 

[26] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


a  wretched  wight  when  he  sang:  “The  earth 
is  full  of  ills,  of  ills  the  sea.”  It  was  a  time 
when  men  were  ready  for  a  more  hopeful  view 
of  the  future  life,  a  view  which  would  promise 
them  a  tolerable  existence  beyond,  which  had 
been  denied  them  here.  It  was  in  the  sixth 
century  that  such  ideas  began  to  find  expres¬ 
sion  in  the  teachings  of  the  Orphics — a  sect 
named  after  the  legendary  minstrel  of  Thrace 
to  whom  the  new  ideas  were  ascribed — and  in 
certain  other  voluntary  and  mystical  societies, 
such  as  the  one  centered  at  Eleusis,  in  whose 
splendid  rites  the  better  elements  of  Greek 
religion  were  intensified.  These  were  natu¬ 
rally  connected  not  with  the  deities  of  the  sky. 
but  with  those  of  the  earth  and  the,  world  below. 

The  doctrines  of  Orphism,  based  largely  on 
Hesiod  and  his  successors,  with  its  initiatory 
rites  adopted  from  Phrygia  and  Crete,  spread 
over  the  Greek  world  like  a  wave  of  reform. 
Here  was  taught  a  very  different  kind  of  here¬ 
after  from  that  pictured  by  Homer.  With 
Homer  life  on  earth,  however  hard  and  som¬ 
bre,  was  nevertheless  preferable  to  death.  To 
the  Orphics,  however,  existence  in  the  body 
was  not  life,  but  a  living  death,  and  what  we 
call  death  was  the  door  of  freedom  for  the  soul 

[  27] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


from  its  prison-house.  The  true  life  is  the  one 
to  come,  when  the  soul  has  regained  its  former 
communion  with  the  gods,  for  the  soul  was  re¬ 
garded  as  celestial  both  in  its  nature  and  origin. 
So  immortality  became  a  moral  motive,  and  sin 
on,  this  earth  must  be  punished  and  the  right¬ 
eous  rewarded.  This  new  conception  of  judg¬ 
ment,  of  penalties  and  rewards  according  to  the 
way  in  which  one  had  lived,  was  taken  over 
by  Pindar  and  ^Eschylus.  Two  things  were  be¬ 
queathed  by  Orphism,  not  only  to  later  Greek 
religion,  but  to  religion  in  general:  the  doctrine 
of  the  divine  nature  of  man,  i.  e.,  immortality 
from  the  beginning,  and  the  practice  of  per¬ 
sonal  holiness. 

The  most  pan-Hellenic  of  the  Greek  myster¬ 
ies  were  those  celebrated  from  very  early  times 
at  the  village  of  Eleusis  near  Athens,  at  first 
in  honor  of  Pluto,  Demeter,  and  Persephone; 
later  in  honor  of  Dionysus,  who  replaced  the 
god  of  the  lower  world.  Although  for  a  long 
time  these  mysteries  formed  an  unauthorized 
and  unofficial  cult,  by  the  fifth  century  b.  c. 
they  had  become  a  recognized  part  of  the 
Athenian  public  worship.  Their  adoption 
marks  the  first  opportunity  for  a  Greek  to 

[28] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


think  apart  from  the  traditional  religion. 
They  were  open  to  all  Athenians  and  to  all 
Greeks  “of  intelligible  speech  and  pure  of 
blood.”  Later  on  they  were  open  to  slaves, 
to  women,  and  finally  to  non-Hellenes,  only 
traitors,  murderers,  and  sacrilegious  persons 
being  excluded.  Thus  they  became  as  truly 
national  and  international  as  the  Olympic 
games  or  the  Delphic  oracle,  and  endured  all 
through  paganism  down  to  the  advent  of  Chris¬ 
tianity.  In  short,  the  Eleusinian  mysteries 
formed  the  first  world-religion  in  Europe.  As 
the  doctrines  were  secretly  taught  and  the 
initiates  were  bound  to  disclose  nothing  seen 
or  heard,  we  really  know  but  little  about  them. 
But  we  do  know  that  their  aim  was  ritualistic 
purity,  and  we  infer  something  more,  that  they 
inculcated  a  higher  belief  in  the  immortality  of 
the  soul  than  was  taught  elsewhere  in  the 
ancient  world.  Both  Pindar  and  Sophocles 
were  initiates,  and  in  guarded  language  they 
speak  of  the  future  blessedness  of  those  who 
were  inducted.6  It  was  through  the  influence 
of  these  mysteries  that  Athens  also  came  to 
evolve  higher  views  of  an  after-life  than  were 
pictured  by  Homer.  Thus,  death  could  be 

[29] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


imagined  by  Socrates  as  either  a  dreamless 
sleep  or,  in  some  wise,  a  preparation  for  a 
higher  life. 

During  the  centuries  of  Athens’  glory  per¬ 
haps  the  most  impressive  characteristics  of 
Greek  religion  were  beauty  and  joy — the  pomp 
of  public  worship,  the  beautiful  temples, 
artistic  cult-statues,  stately  processions,  joyous 
festivals,  and  solemn  ritual.  In  all  this  we  see 
reflected  the  character  of  a  people  endowed  be¬ 
yond  all  others  with  a  sense  of  the  beautiful 
and  the  capacity  to  enjoy  life,  a  people  who 
worshipped  gods  in  whom  they  saw  their  own 
ideals.  Only  consider  that  most  brilliant  wor¬ 
ship  with  which  Athena  was  honored  by  her 
people,  the  great  Panathenaic  procession,  which 
lives  again  for  us  in  the  beautiful  frieze  of  the 
Parthenon.  Surely  no  deity  was  ever  wor¬ 
shipped  more  gloriously  than  was  the  virgin 
goddess  by  such  a  galaxy  of  lovely  forms  mov¬ 
ing  majestically  along  with  their  wealth  of 
color  in  the  luminous  atmosphere  of  the  city 
of  the  violet  crown  and  amid  the  immortal 
monuments  of  those  immortal  men. 

But  beauty  was  only  one  feature  of  Greek 
worship.  Another  as  prominent  was  joyo.us- 
ness.  Greek  religion  rested  lightly  on  men. 

[30] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


The  central  characteristic  of  Greek  mythology 
was  that  it  largely  freed  men  from  the  domina¬ 
tion  of  fear.  Piety,  as  we  have  seen,  was 
merely  a  civic  duty.  The  Greek,  unlike  the 
Hebrew,  never  judged  his  conduct  by  stern 
standards.  He  was  not  impressed  by  any  deep 
sense  of  sin,  nor  did  he  have  much  idea  of  the 
loving  care  of  the  gods.  He  thought  rather 
well  of  himself  and  not  too  well  of  his  human 
gods.  If  he  only  avoided  the  great  moral 
crimes  and  did  not  arouse  the  “envy  of  the 
gods”  by  transgressing  the  limits  set  for  human 
ambition,  he  had  little  to  fear.  For  it  was 
deeply  ingrained  in  the  Greek  consciousness 
that — to  use  a  phrase  from  Herodotus — “the 
god  suffers  none  but  himself  to  be  proud.” 
Nemesis,  the  power  which  “scourges  pride  and 
scorn,”  was  sure  to  overtake  the  man  who  over¬ 
stepped.  The  Greek  realized  how  arbitrary 
the  future  was  and  reflected  on  the  fact  that 
the  wicked  were  as  likely  to  prosper  as  the 
good.  Out  of  such  reflection  had  grown  not 
only  respect  for  the  powers  which  could  cause 
prosperity  and  adversity  at  will,  but  also  the 
desire  to  win  their  future  favors  by  sacrifice 
and  prayer,  and  to  thank  them  for  the  past. 
The  recurring  festivals,  celebrated  with  pro- 

[3i] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


cessions  and  music,  and  accompanied  by  theat¬ 
rical,  orchestral,  or  gymnastic  competitions, 
were  real  holidays.  Athens  observed  as  many 
holidays  during  the  year,  as  we  do  Sundays. 
Even  when  the  opening  days  of  certain  festivals 
were  sad,  they  always  ended  joyously.  Thus, 
the  beginning  of  the  Spartan  Hyacinthia,  an  old 
nature  festival,  was  connected  with  grief  at  the 
death  of  vegetation,  but  it  ended  with  joy  for 
the  coming  harvest  and  confidence  in  a  re¬ 
awakening  of  nature,  as  was  shown  by  its  pro¬ 
cession  of  boys  and  girls  with  harps  and  flutes 
to  the  temple  of  Apollo.  Men  felt  that  the  gods 
could  be  made  to  become  interested  in  them 
and  so  strove  for  their  help  and  protection. 

But  amid  the  beauty  and  joy  of  Greek  wor¬ 
ship  we  must  not  close  our  eyes  to  the  fact  that 
it  also  had  a  darker  side,  even  if  we  meet  that 
side  least  in  Greek  literature  and  art.  Calami¬ 
ties  came  and  were  ascribed  to  malevolent  or 
offended  deities.  Criminals  then,  as  now,  were 
followed  by  the  Furies,  the  avenging  twinges 
of  conscience.  Repulsive  features  were  also 
present  side  by  side  with  nobler  ones,  and  not 
all  of  these  were  survivals  of  earlier  days. 
Philosophers  and  poets  were  constantly  de¬ 
nouncing  immoral  myths,  and  some  cults  were 

[32] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


characterized  by  orgiastic  rites.  But,  on  the 
whole,  Greek  worship  was  pure  and  refined. 
Sex-defilement  was  rare  in  the  temples,  and 
there  certainly  was  no  licentiousness  in  the 
sacred  marriage  drama  at  Eleusis,  in  spite  of 
the  insinuations  of  the  early  Church  Fathers, 
who  had  a  special  interest  in  emphasizing  the 
crudest  and  worst  elements  in  Graeco-Roman 
worship.  Aphrodite’s  cult,  in  general,  was 
decorous  and  her  statues  were  almost  uniformly 
draped  down  to  the  time  of  Praxiteles.  Hellen¬ 
istic  artists  were  often  fond  of  displaying  her 
charms  with  realistic  effect,  but  such  works 
were  no  more  related  to  the  real  religion  of  the 
Greeks  than  are  Rubens’  voluptuous  Magda- 
lenes  to  real  Christianity.  Temple  prostitu¬ 
tion  in  Aphrodite’s  honor  was  mostly  late  or 
found  among  the  Asiatic  Greeks,  and  was  con¬ 
fined  to  only  a  few  places,  such  as  Corinth  and 
Cyprus.  Phallic  ritual,  although  freely  used 
in  vegetation  cults,  was  rarely  obscene.  Thus 
ugliness,  while  it  did  exist  in  Greek  worship, 
was  never  prominent. 

With  the  freedom  and  formalism  of  Greek 
religion,  some  have  questioned  whether  the 
Greeks  after  all  were  really  religious.  But  if 
religion  means  the  consciousness  of  weakness 

[33l 


GREEK  RELIGION 


and  dependence  on  a  power  or  powers  higher 
than  mortals,  and  if  it  is  a  longing  for  sympathy 
and  protection  from  the  powers  which  control 
the  world  of  nature,  and  if  prayer  and  sacri¬ 
fice  are  religious  acts,  the  Greeks  were  certainly 
a  deeply  religious  people.  Nestor’s  son  Pisis- 
tratus  tells  Telemachus  at  Pylus  that  “all  men 
stand  in  need  of  the  gods,”  a  verse  which 
Melanchthon  regarded  as  the  most  beautiful  in 
Homer.  Thales,  by  the  beginning  of  the  sixth 
century  b.  c.,  said  “all  things  are  full  of  the 
gods.”  Clearchus,  in  the  Anabasis  7  of  Xeno¬ 
phon,  tells  the  arch-traitor  Tissaphernes  that 
“all  things  in  all  places  are  subject  to  the  gods, 
and  all  alike  the  gods  hold  in  their  control.” 
Such  sentiments  disclose  the  universality  of 
religious  feeling  among  the  Greeks.  The  ma¬ 
terial  of  religion,  in  its  two  branches  of  theology 
and  ritual,  was  much  the  same  in  Greece  as 
elsewhere — sacrifice,  prayer  and  hymn,  rites 
of  propitiation  and  thanksgiving,  purification 
and  expiation,  belief  in  daemons  and  ghosts 
of  the  departed,  in  magic,  in  ancestor  worship, 
and  divination.  Such  elements  form  the  com¬ 
mon  stock  of  all  religions,  and  may  be  found 
even  in  Christianity  itself.  What  was  peculiar 
to  the  Greek,  then,  was  not  the  material,  but 

f  34] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


the  way  in  which  it  was  handled.  As  one 
writer  has  said:  “Where  the  Australian 
stopped,  the  Greek  passed  on.”  Things  of  ugli¬ 
ness  were  refined  into  things  of  beauty.  Every 
Greek  town  had  more  shrines  than  a  Christian 
city  has  churches.  Athens  alone  had  over  two 
hundred.  You  remember  how  St.  Paul,  as  he 
saw  the  city  full  of  idols,  chided  the  Athenians 
of  his  day  for  being  “somewhat  superstitious.” 
He  found  altars  not  only  to  many  gods,  but 
one  to  an  “unknown  god,”  which  had  been 
erected  there,  as  elsewhere  by  ancient  pagans 
to  correct  any  possible  oversight,  but  which 
with  his  religious  zeal  St.  Paul  immediately 
identified  with  the  Christian  God. 

Sacrifice  was  the  sign  of  the  reverent  spirit. 
It  was  made  mostly  for  favors  expected  rather 
than  for  those  received.  The  traffic  idea  of 
sacrifice  was  instinctive  in  the  Greek.  Hesiod 
said  that  “gifts  move  the  gods  and  reverent 
kings.”  An  ancient  Greek  proverb  ran: 
“Gifts  persuade  even  gods.” 8  This  was  an 
idea  that  constantly  met  the  denunciation  of 
the  philosophers.  Thus,  Plato  said  it  reduced 
worship  to  an  act  of  merchandise  between  gods 
and  men,  and  he  protested  that  God  could  not 
be  “seduced  by  presents  like  a  villainous 

[35] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


money-lender.”  Xenophon  tells  us  that  Socra¬ 
tes  admired  the  line  of  Hesiod  which  ran:  “ac¬ 
cording  to  thine  ability  do  sacrifice  to  the  im¬ 
mortal  gods,”  for  he  believed  that  “the  joy  of 
the  gods  is  greater  in  proportion  to  the  holiness 
of  the  giver.”  9  Euripides  also  declared  that 
“he  who  with  pious  heart  doth  sacrifice,  small 
though  the  offering  be,  salvation  wins.”  10 
Votive  offerings  for  favors  received  were  to  be 
found  in  every  temple,  so  that  many  temples 
were  veritable  museums  of  works  of  art. 
Apollo’s  shrine  on  Delos  alone  is  said  to  have 
possessed  sixteen  hundred  gold  and  silver 
bowls. 

Prayer  was  also  a  universal  phenomenon  of 
Greek  religion,  following  Homer’s  sentiment 
that  “from  the  gods  come  all  good  things.” 
Prayers  for  success  were  offered  by  armies  be¬ 
fore  battle,  by  farmers  for  crops,  by  athletes 
for  victory,  by  hunters,  in  short  by  every  one. 
Every  symposium  began  and  ended  with 
prayer,  and  political  assemblies,  as  still  often 
to-day,  were  regularly  opened  with  it.  Peri¬ 
cles  is  said  to  have  commenced  every  speech 
with  the  prayer  that  he  might  “utter  no  un¬ 
fitting  word.”  Plato  in  the  Timseus  says 
that  at  the  beginning  of  every  undertaking, 

[36] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


whether  great  or  small,  “all  who  participate  in 
virtue,  to  the  least  degree,  invariably  invoke  a 
god.”  Men  prayed  to  Demeter  for  crops,  to 
Dionysus  for  their  vineyards,  to  Asclepius  for 
health,  to  Apollo,  Hermes,  or  Pan  for  their 
flocks,  and,  if  desirous  of  foreknowledge,  to 
Apollo,  who  in  one  sense  was  mightier  than 
Zeus.  For  Louis  Dyer  has  rightly  remarked 
that  “Zeus  was  a  king  among  gods,  who 
reigned,  but  governed  not.  His  Premier  was 
the  Delphic  god.”  Women  prayed  especially 
to  Demeter  and  Persephone.  The  gods  were 
invoked  at  births  and  weddings. 

The  same  traffic  idea  was  present  in  prayer 
as  in  sacrifice.  While  in  Homer  prayers  sel¬ 
dom  expressed  thanksgiving,  but  were  rather 
petitions  spontaneously  rising  to  the  lips  in 
seasons  of  stress,  they  later  changed  their 
character,  and  so  evoked  the  same  protest  as 
sacrifice.  Xenophanes  urged  men  “to  pray 
for  power  to  do  that  which  is  right.”  Xeno¬ 
phon  records  that  Socrates’  ideal  was  “to  pray 
for  that  which  is  good,  without  further  specifi¬ 
cation,  believing  the  gods  best  know  what  is 
good.”  In  the  Second  Alcibiades  Plato  has 
Socrates  approve  this  old  Spartan  prayer: 
“Give  us,  O  King  Zeus,  what  is  good,  whether 

[37] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


we  pray  for  it  or  not,  and  avert  from  us  the 
evil,  even  if  we  pray  for  it.’5  Socrates’  ideal 
of  prayer  is  contained  in  the  beautiful  one  to 
Pan,  which  occurs  at  the  end  of  the  Phxdrus: 
“O  beloved  Pan,  and  all  ye  other  gods  of  this 
place,  grant  to  me  that  I  be  made  beautiful  in 
my  soul  within,  and  that  all  external  pos¬ 
sessions  be  in  harmony  with  my  inner  man. 
May  I  consider  the  wise  man  rich;  and  may  I 
have  such  wealth  as  only  the  self-restrained 
man  can  bear  or  endure.”  He  then  turns  to 
Phaedrus  and  asks:  “Do  we  need  anything 
more,  Phaedrus?  For  me  that  prayer  is 
enough.”  11 

Thus  we  have  seen  that  religion  entered 
deeply  into  the  lives  of  the  Greeks,  and  was 
constantly  before  them  in  nearly  every  event 
in  the  lives  of  states  and  individuals,  for  on  the 
favor  of  the  gods  hung  the  prosperity  of  both. 
The  Greek  calendar  was  merely  an  invention 
to  determine  the  festivals.  Greek  religious  im¬ 
agination  constantly  tended  to  inspire  Greek 
art,  both  plastic  and  literary,  and  philosophy. 
Greek  art  was  only  the  handmaid  of  religion 
and  would  have  satisfied  even  the  definition 
of  Tolstoi.  Beautiful  sculptures  have  pre¬ 
served  to  our  eyes  the  very  forms  of  the  Greek 

[38] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


gods  which  were  present  to  the  Greek  imagina¬ 
tion  at  different  times.  Vase-paintings  tell  us 
of  the  ritual  and  externals  of  worship.  Temple 
ruins  let  our  imaginations  restore  the  grandeur 
of  their  holy  places.  And  as  for  Greek  litera¬ 
ture,  despite  the  absence  of  sacred  books,  it 
fairly  teems  with  religious  thought  and  senti¬ 
ment.  The  Greek  drama  was  religious  in  its 
origin  and  remained  so  throughout  its  develop¬ 
ment.  Greek  philosophy  was  always  theologi¬ 
cal.  Greek  law  was  religious  in  its  origin  and 
evolution.  Even  the  great  public  games,  such 
as  those  at  Olympia  and  Delphi,  were  religious 
meetings,  at  first  associated  with  the  worship 
of  heroes,  later  with  that  of  gods.  They  fig¬ 
ured  among  the  strongest  Pan-hellenic  influ¬ 
ences  which  were  constantly  making  for  na¬ 
tionality  and  for  a  broader  religion  than  that 
of  tribe  or  city.  Great  poets,  thinkers,  and 
artists  found  much  more  to  praise  than  to 
condemn  in  the  simple  popular  faith.  Pindar 
and  Sophocles,  Phidias  and  Praxiteles,  were  re¬ 
ligious  men.  Aristotle,  in  his  day,  could  say 
that  the  word  “father”  when  applied  to  Zeus 
included  the  idea  of  his  care  for  men.  This 
idea  first  appears  in  Greek  literature  in  a  pas¬ 
sage  of  Plato’s  Apology ,  in  which  Socrates  says 

[39] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


to  his  judges  that  “no  evil  can  come  to  a  good 
man  either  in  life  or  after  death,  and  God  does 
not  neglect  him.”  St.  Paul  could  quote  the 
sentiment  of  the  late  Greek  poet  Aratus  that 
“we  are  his  offspring.”  And  the  Stoic  Clean- 
thes,  in  his  hymn  to  the  majesty  of  Zeus,  could 
say  much  the  same  thing,  even  though  he  meant 
thereby  that  human  reason  is  a  fragment  of  the 
divine.  The  human  quality  of  the  gods  and 
the  divine  nature  of  man  have  never  been  ap¬ 
prehended  more  clearly  than  by  the  Greeks. 
While  the  Hebrews  taught  that  men  were 
fashioned  in  the  image  of  God,  the  Greeks  fash¬ 
ioned  their  Gods  in  the  image  of  men.  It 
was  Heraclitus  who  said  that  “mortals  are  im¬ 
mortals  and  immortals  are  mortals,  living  the 
immortals’  death  and  dying  the  immortals’ 
life”  12 — perhaps  enigmatically  referring  to  the 
Orphic  conception  of  the  body  as  the  prison  of 
the  soul,  from  which  the  soul  escapes  at  death, 
in  order  to  enter  upon  its  real  existence. 


II.  THE  INFLUENCE  OF  GREEK 
RELIGION  ON  EARLY  CHRIS- 
TIANITY:  THE  GREEK  GODS 
TURNED  SAINTS 

IT  IS  not  surprising  that  this  religion,  which 
entered  so  vitally  and  deeply  into  every 
phase  of  Greek  life  for  a  period  of  so  many 
centuries,  should  have  left  a  permanent  influ¬ 
ence  on  the  beliefs  and  ritual  of  Christianity 
which  was  destined  to  supersede  it.  This  influ¬ 
ence  has  affected  the  conquering  faith  in  many 
ways,  leaving  its  traces  upon  the  theology, 
ethics,  and  rites  of  the  whole  Christian  Church, 
and  imposing  customs,  beliefs,  and  supersti¬ 
tions  upon  the  Eastern  Church  of  the  modern 
Greek  people.  For  disjecta  membra  of  the  old 
religion  can  be  found  everywhere  in  the  Greece 
of  to-day,  the  past  constantly  showing  through 
the  present. 

The  debt  of  Christianity  at  large  to  Greek 
religion  and  philosophy  is  a  complex  and  many- 
sided  question,  one  to  be  set  forth  also  in  other 
volumes  of  the  present  Series.  In  general,  it 

[41] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


may  be  said  that  Greek  religion  was  not  ob¬ 
literated  by  Christianity,  but  that  the  two  were 
fused,  and  that  after  the  process  was  com¬ 
pleted  many  of  the  older  forms  and  beliefs  re¬ 
appeared.  To  the  most  casual  observer  there 
is  an  enormous  gulf  between  the  simple  appeal 
of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  which  promul¬ 
gated  a  new  law  of  conduct  without  any 
metaphysical  basis,  and  the  reasoned  body  of 
doctrines  found  in  the  Nicene  creed,  which  still 
forms  the  dominant  element  in  Christianity 
to-day.  While  one  fits  the  simple  lives  of 
Palestinian  peasants,  the  other  is  the  result  of 
the  acute  speculations  of  Greek  philosophers. 
The  passing  from  one  to  the  other  carried  the 
Christian  worshiper  from  a  system  primarily 
interested  in  conduct  to  one  interested  in  the 
fundamentals  of  belief. 

To  understand  the  transformation  by  which 
Christianity,  an  oriental  faith,  gradually  be¬ 
came  rooted  in  Hellenism,  we  must  understand 
the  environment  of  the  Greek  world  into  which 
Christianity  was  to  pass  from  the  Jewish  at¬ 
mosphere  of  Palestine.  For  centuries  Greek 
philosophy,  always  theological  in  character, 
had  been  concerned  not  only  with  the  physical 
world,  but  with  conduct  and  the  nature  of  the 

[  42  ] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


god-head.  It  was  inevitable,  therefore,  that 
primitive  Christianity,  if  it  was  to  succeed 
among  educated  Greeks,  should  be  influenced 
by  Greek  ways  of  thinking  and  that  its  theol¬ 
ogy  should  be  recast  in  a  Greek  mold.  Chris¬ 
tianity  came  into  ground  that  was  prepared  to 
receive  it.  But,  at  the  same  time,  by  the  time 
of  its  advent,  the  elements  of  Greek  education 
were  widely  diffused  among  all  classes.  This 
education  had  long  aroused  the  habit  of  inquiry 
which  was  at  the  basis  of  Greek  philosophy  and 
which,  during  the  later  centuries,  had  incul¬ 
cated  definite  logical  and  metaphysical  methods 
which  were  certain  to  affect  the  new  religion. 

We  see  the  influence  of  Greek  philosophy 
especially  in  the  Christian  concept  of  God  and 
in  that  of  ethics.  Greek  speculation  had  long 
laid  down  the  fundamental  attributes  of  Deity, 
its  oneness,  personality,  and  benevolence.  The 
primitive  Christian  belief  in  one  God,  creator 
of  the  world  and  kindly  Father  of  men,  rested 
on  the  naive  conviction  of  a  spiritual  revela¬ 
tion.  Greek  philosophy  was  to  strengthen  this 
conviction  with  a  reasoned,  intellectual  basis. 
The  Greeks  in  their  gradual  ascent  from  ani¬ 
mism  to  Olympus  had  finally  evolved  the  be¬ 
lief  in  the  personality  of  the  godhead.  As 

[43] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


the  human  mind  was  the  real  self,  so  the  great 
mind  behind  or  within  nature  was  essentially 
personal,  the  creator  and  moral  governor  of 
the  world.  Furthermore,  God  was  an  absolute 
Being  and  this  complex  idea  was  destined  to 
change  the  simple  Christian  conception,  since 
the  essence  of  God  had  to  be  defined.  So  the 
Christian  God  became  more  metaphysical  and 
less  spiritual,  and  much  of  the  primitive  faith, 
which  had  been  based  on  the  simple  love  of 
God  and  trust  in  Jesus,  was  lost. 

On  its  ethical  side  also  Christianity  was  to 
be  influenced  no  less  vitally.  The  Jews  had 
always  been  more  interested  in  problems  of 
life  than  in  disputes  about  the  nature  of  God. 
Hebrew  philosophy  had  never  become  systema¬ 
tized,  but  had  remained  in  the  antithetical  and 
proverbial  stage.  Through  the  influence  of 
Greek  thought,  the  primitive  Christian  ethics 
were  to  become  speculative  and  mystical. 
Moral  conduct  and  discipline  were  quite  as 
much  the  aim  of  the  later  systems  of  Greek 
philosophy  as  they  were  of  Christianity,  al¬ 
though  each  approached  the  problem  differ¬ 
ently.  To  the  Christian,  morality  rested  upon 
the  Jewish  theocratic  idea  of  a  divine  com¬ 
mand,  but  the  Greeks  had  long  been  seeking  an 

[44] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


independent  origin  consonant  with  natural  law. 
To  the  one,  infraction  of  the  moral  code  was 
sin  and  demanded  repentance  and  forgiveness, 
as  the  means  of  restoration  to  grace;  to  the 
other  it  meant  failure;  while  forgiveness  was 
difficult,  redemption  could  be  secured  by  ap¬ 
propriate  ceremonies  of  purgation  which  qui¬ 
eted  the  conscience.  Christian  morality  be¬ 
came  subordinate  to  belief  and  consequently 
declined  from  its  original  stern  standards.  The 
ethics  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  which  had 
conquered  by  its  simple  sincerity,  later  came 
into  conflict  with  the  ethics  of  Roman  law, 
which  was  a  fusion  of  Roman  legal  ideas  of 
human  rights  and  the  concept  of  human  rela¬ 
tionships  as  taught  by  the  Stoic  philosophers. 

It  was  Greek  religion,  however,  rather  than 
philosophy,  which  influenced  the  ceremonial 
of  the  Church  by  the  spell  of  the  elaborate 
rituals  of  the  Greek  mysteries  celebrated  at 
Eleusis  and  elsewhere  in  the  Eastern  part  of  the 
Roman  Empire.  Since  these  old  mystic  as¬ 
sociations  had  practically  the  same  aim  as 
Christianity — the  love  of  a  purer  faith  and 
life,  and  the  inculcation  of  the  spirit  of  brother¬ 
hood — the  two  systems  were  bound  to  be 
drawn  together.  We  see  this  process  of  as- 

[45] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


similation  especially  in  the  ritual  of  the  two 
great  sacraments  of  the  early  Church — Bap¬ 
tism  and  the  Lord’s  Supper — practices  symbolic 
of  entrance  into  the  new  kingdom  and  member¬ 
ship  in  the  new  society.  At  first  the  simple 
baptism  of  water  followed  immediately  on  con¬ 
version  and  without  the  need  of  a  special 
minister;  a  little  later  it  was  preceded  by 
fasting  and  brief  instruction  on  the  significance 
of  the  rite.  But  soon  the  very  name  and  con¬ 
cept  of  this  primitive  ritual  were  changed.  By 
the  time  of  Justin  Martyr  it  was  known  as  the 
“Enlightenment,”  and  a  little  later,  by  that  of 
Tertullian,  it  was  called  the  “Seal,”  names 
which  were  taken  directly  from  the  Greek 
mysteries.  It  was  carried  out  with  a  mystic 
formula  whose  technical  terminology  was 
taken  from  the  same  source.  It  was  performed 
in  secret  and  at  stated  times  and  in  the  great 
churches  and  only  after  a  long  preparation. 
Similarly  the  Eucharist,  which  commemorated 
Jesus’  last  meal  with  his  disciples,  at  first  con¬ 
sisted  merely  of  a  blessing  on  the  wine  and 
broken  bread,  followed  by  the  converted  par¬ 
taking  of  both  immediately  after  baptism  and 
then  by  prayers  of  thanksgiving  and  supplica¬ 
tion.  But  by  the  middle  of  the  second  century 

[46] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


the  holy  table  was  known  as  the  altar,  the  offer¬ 
ings  laid  upon  it  were  conceived  as  mysteries, 
and  the  priest  officiated  in  secret.  Thus,  under 
the  influence  of  the  old  Greek  mysteries,  the 
whole  concept  of  original  Christian  worship  was 
changed,  and  throughout  the  East  the  simple 
rites  were  metamorphosed  into  a  rich  and 
varied  ceremonial  carried  out  amid  the  glare 
of  lights  with  processions  of  torch-bearers 
chanting  hymns,  the  central  rite  being  hidden 
from  the  public. 

Apart  from  these  more  general  influences, 
an  even  more  definite  one  can  be  traced  in  the 
Eastern  Church  in  the  continued  persistence 
of  many  other  old  Greek  rites,  beliefs,  and 
superstitions,  which  live  even  to-day  under 
cover  of  Christianity.  It  is  with  these  survi¬ 
vals  of  Greek  religion  rather  than  with  in¬ 
fluences  of  Greek  speculation  that  we  are  here 
concerned. 

The  living  Greek  has  inherited  not  only  the 
lands,  the  language,  and,  to  some  extent,  the 
blood  and  character  of  the  old  Greeks,  but  also 
many  traditions  and  beliefs  from  the  ancient 
religion.  As  Edmond  About  has  said  in  his 
Memoir e  sur  Egine:  “Of  all  the  ruins  of 
Greece,  the  Greek  people  is  not  the  least  inter- 

[47] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


esting.”  Here  he  has  piquantly  expressed  a 
real  fact — the  survival  of  customs  and  charac¬ 
teristics  of  the  old  Greeks.  Thus  the  Romaic 
speech,  despite  increments  from  Turkish, 
Arabic,  Italian,  Albanian,  Frank,  and  Slavic 
sources,  is,  after  all,  merely  the  survival  of 
Byzantine  Greek,  which,  in  turn.,  was  de¬ 
scended  from  the  koine  or  patois  in  use  every¬ 
where  in  the  eastern  Mediterranean  lands  after 
the  conquests  of  Alexander.  In  spite  of  all  the 
political  vicissitudes  of  the  Greek  people,  their 
language  has  resisted  all  invaders.  Fallmer- 
ayer’s  belief,  enunciated  many  years  ago  and 
even  now  applauded  by  certain  propagandists, 
that  the  mainland  Greeks  of  his  day  had  no 
claim  to  Hellenic  descent,  but  had  been  re¬ 
placed  by  Slavic  blood  during  the  great  Slavic 
immigrations  into  Greece  from  the  sixth  to  the 
end  of  the  tenth  centuries,  has  long  since  been 
abandoned  in  most  quarters.  Slavic  influence 
certainly  can  be  traced  in  the  physical  charac¬ 
teristics  of  the  Greek  people,  but  the  few  Slavic 
speech-forms  now  found  in  Romaic  are  not  sur¬ 
vivals  of  the  far  off  days  when  Slavic  hordes 
overran  the  Balkan  peninsula,  but  rather  are 
borrowings  through  Turkish  and  Albanian,  in 
which  languages  Slavic  words  are  still  plenti- 

[48] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


ful.  With  certain  reservations,  then.,  the  mod¬ 
ern  Greeks  may  be  said  to  be  descended  from 
the  Greeks  of  antiquity.  No  one  who  has  a 
first-hand,  even  though  superficial,  knowledge 
of  the  present-day  Greeks  can  fail  to  have  re¬ 
marked  how  the  old  Greek  character — its  alert¬ 
ness  and  sobriety,  its  activity  and  curiosity,  its 
intelligence  and  taste  for  politics — everywhere 
reappears.  A  more  extended  and  intimate  ac¬ 
quaintance  with  their  customs,  traditions,  and 
superstitions  will  show  that  these  also  are 
largely  descended  from  older  ones.  Nowhere 
is  this  connection  with  the  past  more  noticeable 
than  in  the  religious  survivals,  the  main  subject 
of  the  present  sketch,  which  will  show  that  an¬ 
tiquity  still  vitally  influences  the  present.  In 
short,  all  phases  of  the  modern  life  of  the 
Greek  people  are  affected  by  an  unconscious, 
and  at  times  quite  conscious,  effort  to  keep  up 
older  traditions.  In  language,  blood,  charac¬ 
ter,  traditions,  and  religious  beliefs,  there  has 
been  fusion  in  Greece  throughout  the  ages,  but 
still  the  chief  element  in  them  all  is  Greek. 

For  the  first  three  centuries,  down  to  the 
time  of  Constantine,  Christianity  had  to  fight 
for  its  very  existence.  At  first  it  was  known 
as  a  “pernicious  superstition”  of  the  Jews, 

[49] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


whose  votaries  Tacitus  termed  “haters  of  the 
human  race.”  Its  exclusiveness  and  intoler¬ 
ance  aroused  the  animosity  of  Rome,  which 
was  tolerant  toward  all  sects.  Its  membership 
was  drawn  from  the  humblest  ranks  and  con¬ 
sisted  largely  of  women.  As  it  spread,  it  grew 
more  intolerant  of  other  creeds  than  Judaism 
itself,  and  hence  came  to  be  looked  upon  as  a 
specially  vicious  branch  of  the  latter  and  hos¬ 
tile  to  the  peace  of  the  Empire.  Its  first  perse¬ 
cution  under  Nero  was,  therefore,  more  polit¬ 
ical  than  religious  in  character.  In  the  early 
part  of  the  second  century  Trajan  declared  it 
illegal  and  its  members  were  liable  to  death, 
although  the  emperor’s  correspondence  with 
the  provincial  governor  Pliny  shows  that  so 
severe  a  sentence  was  rarely  carried  out.  Con¬ 
sequently  the  persecutions  under  Trajan  were 
local  and  popular  rather  than  general  and  fos¬ 
tered  by  the  government.  By  the  third  cen¬ 
tury,  however,  the  Church  counted  converts  in 
palace  and  at  court.  Decline  in  prosperity 
and  anarchy  in  government  during  that  terrible 
century  naturally  turned  men’s  minds  to  this 
religion  of  promise  and  peace,  and  the  trend 
of  political  events,  despite  the  persecution  un- 

1 50] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


der  Decius,  favored  its  ultimate  victory  the  fol¬ 
lowing  century.  The  Church  was  now  toler¬ 
ated,  even  if  it  was  “a  vast,  organized  defiance 
of  law.”  At  the  end  of  the  third  century  the 
struggle  between  the  Church  and  State  entered 
its  last  stage,  for  under  Diocletian  the  Church 
had  its  last  persecution.  It  had  now  grown  too 
strong  to  be  successfully  persecuted.  At  the 
opening  of  the  fourth  century  Constantine  was 
shrewd  enough  to  see  the  advantages  to  himself 
in  his  civil  wars  of  an  alliance  with  the  Church. 
By  the  edict  of  toleration  signed  at  Milan  by 
Constantine  and  his  colleague  Licinius  in  313, 
following  that  of  Galerius  in  311  which  had 
permitted  the  Christians  to  practice  their  re¬ 
ligion  “if  they  did  nothing  contrary  to  good 
order,”  Christianity  became  the  favored  re¬ 
ligion  of  the  court,  and  civil  advancement  was 
only  possible  through  its  ranks.  It  was  only 
a  step  to  the  edict  of  Theodosius  toward  the 
close  of  the  century  by  which  it  became  the 
recognized  religion  of  the  state.  This  change 
in  its  fortunes  was  the  chief  event  of  that  cen¬ 
tury,  for,  though  less  than  one-tenth  of  the 
population  of  the  Empire  was  enrolled  as 
Christian,  it  was  by  far  the  most  important  ele- 

[51] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


ment  in  that  population,  since  it  was  com¬ 
pletely  organized  and  was  massed  in  the  urban 
communities. 

As  victor  the  Church  adopted  the  only  rea¬ 
sonable  policy — to  adapt  itself  to  existing  con¬ 
ditions  so  far  as  this  was  not  opposed  to  its  fun¬ 
damental  principles.  It  adopted,  in  fact,  the 
same  policy  in  the  Graeco-Roman  world  that 
it  employed  everywhere  else — the  enlisting  in 
its  service  of  everything  in  existing  beliefs  and 
practices  which  it  found  useful.  It  would  have 
been  surprising  if,  while  trying  to  propagate  its 
doctrines  in  the  Roman  Empire,  the  Church 
had  repudiated  all  that  theretofore  had  served 
to  express  religious  feeling.  Paganism  here 
was  to  react  strongly  on  Christianity,  and  the 
latter  found  it  advantageous  to  enter  upon  a 
policy  of  conciliation  and,  at  times,  even  of 
compromise  by  assimilating  and  blending  older 
ideas  with  its  own.  Some  investigators,  such 
as  Deleh&ye,  may  have  underestimated  this 
policy  of  compromise,  while  others,  such  as 
Lawson,  may  have  exaggerated  it.  But  that 
there  was  such  a  policy  needs  but  little  proof, 
for  it  was  the  only  logical  one  for  the  Church 
to  follow.  This  policy  is  largely  responsible 
for  the  survival  of  old  rites  and  beliefs  among 

[  52  ] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


the  masses  of  the  people  in  the  Eastern  Church. 
The  pagan  Empire  gradually  became  Chris¬ 
tian;  at  the  same  time  the  Christian  Church 
became  largely  pagan.  Later  on.,  when  the 
Church  penetrated  barbarian  Germany,  there 
was  a  similar  reaction,  although  there  it  more 
easily  got  rid  of  ancient  beliefs  and  practices. 
There,  as  in  the  Graeco-Roman  world,  the  ad¬ 
vantages  to  the  Church  outweighed  any  pos¬ 
sible  loss. 

The  Greeks  and  Romans  were  ready  from 
the  first  to  admit  Christ  into  their  pantheons  of 
gods,  since  both  peoples  were  tolerant  of  for¬ 
eign  cults.  Tertullian,  the  earliest  of  the  Latin 
Fathers,  tells  us  that  Tiberius  proposed  to 
apotheosize  Christ,  though  the  statement  is 
now  generally  discredited.  The  historian 
Lampridius  says  that  both  Hadrian  and 
Severus  Alexander  had  in  mind  the  building 
of  a  temple  in  honor  of  Christ,  and  that  the  lat¬ 
ter  placed  in  his  private  chapel  statues  of 
Christ  and  Abraham  along  with  those  of 
Orpheus  and  Apollonius  of  Tyana.  St.  Augus¬ 
tine  records  that  Homer,  Pythagoras,  Christ, 
and  Paul  were  worshipped  together  in  his  time. 

But  the  Greeks,  while  willing  to  accept  new 
gods,  were  not  so  willing  to  discard  their  old 

[  S3  ] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


ones.  Christianity  could  ridicule  these  gods  by 
pointing  out  their  licentious  character  and 
cruelty;  but  it  could  not  get  rid  of  them.  It 
was  not  so  difficult  to  drive  out  the  chief  Olym¬ 
pians,  as  these  stood  relatively  aloof  from  the 
practical  affairs  of  life  and  consequently  could 
be  alienated  more  easily  from  the  popular  alle¬ 
giance.  Moreover,  their  worship  had  gradually 
become  formal  and  ceremonial.  It  was  a 
much  harder  task  to  get  rid  of  the  chthonian 
deities,  since  their  gifts  of  healing  had  brought 
them  very  close  to  men,  and  consequently  pa¬ 
ganism  was  destined  to  fight  its  last  battles  in 
the  temples  of  such  gods  as  Asclepius  and 
Serapis.  But  the  hardest  task  of  all  was  to 
drive  out  the  lesser  divinities  or  “potencies,” 
which  early  Christian  writers  still  called  by 
their  old  name  “daemons.”  These  had  been 
intimately  connected  for  many  centuries  with 
every  phase  of  life  and  were  destined  to  sur¬ 
vive  the  victory  of  Christianity,  for  belief  in 
them  was  ingrained  in  the  very  nature  of  the 
people.  The  Greeks  were  tolerant  and,  there¬ 
fore,  hostile  to  the  intolerance  of  the  new  faith. 
This  very  intolerance  was  to  prove  the  great¬ 
est  obstacle  to  the  progress  of  Christianity. 
Despite  imperial  edicts  little  progress  would 

[54] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 

have  peen  possible,  if  the  Church  Fathers  had 
not  seen  the  necessity  of  preaching  conciliation. 
The  masses  of  the  people  in  both  Greece  and 
Italy  were  incurably  polytheistic  by  nature; 
although  they  might  conform  outwardly  with 
the  new  religion,  they  persisted  in  retaining 
many  of  their  old  beliefs.  It  is  doubtful  if  they 
really  felt  any  antagonism  between  the  old  and 
the  new,  for  they  willingly  worshipped  both. 
The  Church  had  to  meet  these  conditions  and 
ultimately  tolerated  the  retention  of  many  be¬ 
liefs  and  practices,  even  when  it  did  not  sanc¬ 
tion  them.  It  had  to  leave  to  the  slow  opera¬ 
tion  of  time  the  healing  of  differences. 

The  people  continued,  doubtless,  to  wor¬ 
ship  at  their  accustomed  places.  Christian 
churches  were  sure  to  replace  pagan  temples 
or  to  be  erected  on  ancient  holy  spots.  Christ, 
Mary,  and  the  Saints  gradually  replaced  the 
old  deities.  Sometimes  saints  whose  names 
and  attributes  were  similar  to  those  of  the  dis¬ 
possessed  gods  were  given  to  the  churches,  and 
Christian  festivals  continued  to  be  held  on  the 
dates  of  pagan  ones.  Only  gradually  did  the 
Church  learn  that  such  concessions  brought 
evil  in  their  train  and  that  the  old  beliefs  could 
not  be  eradicated.  Church  Fathers,  such  as 

[55] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


St.  Chrysostom,  remonstrated  in  vain  against 
the  retention  of  the  older  practices.  In  spite 
of  its  intention,  then,  the  Church  was  destined 
to  become  colored  by  polytheism,  the  old 
deities  being  perpetuated  under  the  guise  of 
Christian  adaptation.  The  people  were  taught 
that  the  saints  were  not  to  be  worshipped  like 
Christ  and  Mary,  but  that  they  were  merely 
mediators  between  God  and  men ;  but  the  peo¬ 
ple,  polytheistic  in  their  nature,  were  sure  to 
regard  them  as  they  regarded  Christ,  the  great 
mediator.  Gradually  the  provinces  of  activity 
of  the  Christian  saints  were  sharply  defined, 
just  as  had  been  the  case  with  the  old  deities. 
In  course  of  time  the  saints  usurped  the  alle¬ 
giance  of  men’s  minds,  even  obscuring  the 
persons  of  the  Trinity.  The  powers  of  the 
Deity  were  thus  delegated  to  a  host  of  these 
saints,  who  were  believed  to  be  nearer  to  men 
and  easier  of  access.  Thus,  in  a  certain  sense, 
it  is  true  that  the  deities  of  the  Homeric  pan¬ 
theon  were  replaced  by  Christian  saints. 

The  Eastern  Church  to-dav  shows  the  result 
of  its  early  policy  of  conciliation  and  compro¬ 
mise.  Its  members  are  devoted  to  the  Chris¬ 
tian  Trinity,  but  in  a  very  true  sense  they  still 
remain  largely  pagan.  Although  they  make 

[56] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


the  sign  of  the  cross  as  frequently  as  their 
Roman  cousins  do,  and  although  they  believe 
in  the  miraculous  powers  of  the  saints  and  their 
icons  and  observe  their  festivals,  the  Greek 
people  are  still  polytheistic  and  pagan  in  tem¬ 
perament.  They  still  believe  in  the  old  idea 
of  sacrifice  and  in  divination  by  omens,  dreams, 
and  even  oracles.  They  believe  in  a  great 
number  of  supernatural  beings  who  are  quite 
outside  the  pale  of  Christianity.  While  some 
of  these  beings  are  more  or  less  disguised  un¬ 
der  Christian  beliefs,  others  live  on  almost  un¬ 
changed.  Especially  is  this  polytheistic  back¬ 
ground  true  of  the  common  people.  They,  like 
the  Greeks  of  old,  still  live  in  a  world  peopled 
by  such  spirits,  to  some  of  whom  they  pray 
and  sacrifice  for  favors,  and  from  others  of 
whom  they  protect  themselves  by  exorcisms 
and  magic  rites.  Such  beings  are  far  from 
imaginary,  for  the  people  believe  that  they  can 
be  seen,  heard,  and,  at  times,  even  touched. 

Christianity,  then,  is  only  a  part  of  the  re¬ 
ligion  of  the  ordinary  Greek.  Externally  he  is 
a  Christian;  but  deep  in  his  own  consciousness 
he  is  still  a  pagan.  The  priest,  often  as  igno¬ 
rant  as  his  flock,  does  not  try  to  interpret  this 
mixture  of  pagan  tradition  and  Christian  rites, 

[57] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


for  he  neither  feels  nor  understands  it.  Con¬ 
sequently  the  people  are  never  taught  to  feel 
any  contrast  in  their  mixed  ideas  of  the  god¬ 
head  and  continue  to  pray  and  sacrifice  both 
to  pagan  spirits  and  to  the  Christian  God.  Al¬ 
though  they  give  their  main  allegiance  to  the 
persons  of  the  Trinity  and  to  Mary,  after  all, 
as  Sir  James  Rennell  Rodd  has  said,  they  be¬ 
lieve  more  in  the  old  Fates  than  in  God  and 
more  in  the  Homeric  Hades  than  in  the  Chris¬ 
tian  hereafter.  Many  of  the  present-day  sur¬ 
vivals,  such  as  belief  in  the  Evil  Eye  and  in 
certain  forms  of  magic,  go  back  to  the  earliest 
and  most  primitive  notions,  even  to  a  time  be¬ 
fore  the  fusion  of  Mediterranean  and  Hellenic 
ideas  which  produced  the  religion  of  the  histori¬ 
cal  Greeks.  Still  others,  such  as  belief  in 
revenants,  while  Greek  in  origin,  have  been 
largely  influenced  by  alien  peoples  who  have 
come  into  contact  with  the  Greeks  since  anti¬ 
quity.  The  study  of  such  survivals  is  a  fas¬ 
cinating  one,  but  it  must  be  pursued  with  cau¬ 
tion;  for  we  must  be  constantly  on  our  guard 
lest  we  confuse  genuine  survivals  from  anti¬ 
quity  with  scholastic  interpolations  of  recent 
times,  the  result  of  modern  education  and  inter¬ 
course.  The  folk-songs  and  especially  the 

[58] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 

folk-tales  which  one  sometimes  hears  to-day 
are  certainly  not  always  the  result  of  pure  tra¬ 
dition.  Thus  the  present-day  stories  about 
Alexander  the  Great  are  largely  the  result  of 
imagination,  which  has  obscured  the  ancient 
tradition. 

One  of  the  chief  charms  of  travel  in  Greek 
lands  to-day  is  meeting  with  these  survivals 
of  old  customs  and  beliefs.  On  many  an  iso¬ 
lated  island  and  in  many  a  remote  valley  of  the 
mainland,  where  there  has  been  small  contact 
with  the  outside  world,  the  peasants  will  be 
found  to  have  preserved  not  only  the  speech, 
but  the  superstitions  and  customs  of  the  Old 
World.  These  are  to  be  met  with  in  every 
phase  and  detail  of  domestic  life.  We  find 
them  in  the  agricultural  and  pastoral  life  of 
the  people,  in  their  industries  and  medical  lore, 
in  their  games  and  dances,  and  especially  in 
the  host  of  ceremonies  connected  with  births, 
marriages,  and  death.  These  survivals,  so  in¬ 
teresting  to  traveler  and  folklorist,  are  gradu¬ 
ally  disappearing  with  the  increased  facilities 
of  communication  and  extension  of  education. 
Only  here  and  there  and  generally  under  diffi¬ 
culties  can  they  still  be  traced.  Sometimes  a 
religious  survival  may  be  confined  to  a  single 

[59] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


folk-tale  or  folk-song.  And  it  will  not  be  long 
before  such  survivals  will  have  disappeared  al¬ 
most  completely.  But  we  are  fortunate  in  hav¬ 
ing  many  collections  of  such  songs  and  tales, 
which  have  been  made  from  the  time  of  Leo 
Allatius,  the  Chiote  theologian  and  folklorist 
of  the  early  seventeenth  century,  down  to  our 
own  day.  The  list  of  such  collections  com¬ 
prises  many  distinguished  names  of  French, 
German,  English,  and  Greek  scholars, — Fauriel 
and  Legrand,  Passow,  Schmidt,  and  von  Hahn, 
Abbott  and  Garnett,  Polites,  Zampelios,  and  a 
host  of  local  Greek  historians. 

Before  discussing  the  complicated  question 
of  whether  the  Christian  saints  have  succeeded 
to  the  old  deities,  we  shall  briefly  discuss  the 
Christian  use  of  temple  sites,  and  then  mention 
a  few  of  the  survivals  of  the  major  gods  which 
exist  in  folklore, — chiefly  of  Zeus,  Poseidon, 
Demeter,  Artemis,  Aphrodite,  Apollo  and  the 
woodland  Pan.  Delehaye  is  probably  right  in 

A 

his  belief  that  it  became  possible  to  establish 
churches  on  old  temple  sites  only  after  the  tri¬ 
umph  of  Christianity,  and  not  in  the  early  cen¬ 
turies  of  conflict.  Christianity  certainly  did 
not  wait  for  the  abandonment  of  such  sites  be¬ 
fore  erecting  basilicas  on  ground  that  had  not 

[  60  ] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


been  holy.  Some  time  ago  Petit  de  Julle- 
ville 13  attempted  to  trace,  through  epithets 
and  sites  of  Greek  churches,  a  connection  be¬ 
tween  such  churches  and  the  old  temples.  But 
many  of  his  deductions  were  certainly  far¬ 
fetched.  Thus  he  connected  the  Church  of  the 
Twelve  Apostles  at  Athens  with  the  altars  of 
the  twelve  gods  which  are  believed  to  have  been 
located  in  the  same  neighborhood.  Conse¬ 
quently  only  a  few  examples  of  the  transforma¬ 
tion  of  temples  into  churches  may  be  regarded 
as  certain.  The  best  example,  of  course,  is 
the  Parthenon,  whose  virgin  goddess  Athena 
was  replaced  at  some  unknown  date  between 
the  middle  of  the  fifth  and  middle  of  the  sixth 
centuries  by  the  virgin  mother  of  Christ.  The 
so-called  Theseum  at  Athens  was  dedicated  to 
the  warrior  St.  George  of  Cappadocia.  The 
church  of  the  Panaghia  Blastike— Virgin  of 
Fecundity — certainly  stands  near  an  old  shrine 
of  Ilithyia,  the  goddess  of  fecundity.  A  church 
of  St.  Nicolas  is  on  the  site  of  a  shrine  of  Posei¬ 
don,  his  prototype.  Other  examples  may  be 
cited  outside  Athens,  such  as  the  Church  of  the 
Annunciation  on  Tenos,  which  was  built  a  cen¬ 
tury  ago  on  the  site  of  an  older  one,  which  in 
turn  replaced  a  temple  of  Poseidon.  Within 

[  61  ] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


its  precincts  is  a  holy  spring  with  healing  pow¬ 
ers,  and  we  know  that  Poseidon  was  wor¬ 
shipped  here  as  “the  Healer.”  Similarly,  holy 
caves  and  groves  became  sacred  spots  of  Chris¬ 
tianity.  Thus  on  the  north  side  of  Colonus 
near  Athens  there  were  visible  until  recently 
the  remains  of  a  church  in  honor  of  the  “safe 
saints,”  a  title  which  is  reminiscent  of  the 
Eumenides  who  had  a  grove  here;  and  nearby 
is  a  chapel  of  St.  Nicolas,  where  Poseidon  once 
had  a  sanctuary. 

Turning  next  to  the  survivals  of  the  major 
gods  in  the  popular  beliefs  of  to-day  we  find 
only  a  few  that  can  be  called  authentic.  Most 
of  these  refer  to  Zeus,  who  in  the  old  Olympian 
system  was  chief  in  power  and  wisdom,  and 
was,  therefore,  from  the  time  of  Homer  on¬ 
wards  frequently  known  as  “the  god”  or 
“God.”  The  word  “god,”  thus  used  of  the 
greatest  of  the  immortals,  reappears  in  Romaic 
in  many  compound  words  where  it  has  the 
meaning  of  “big”  or  “excessive,”  that  is,  like 
the  gods.  It  is  prefixed  to  nouns  and  especially 
to  adjectives.  Thus  we  have  tfeoWiTo,  “big 
house,”  0£ok<o</>os,  “stone  deaf,”  and  many 
similar  combinations.  In  ancient  Greek  the 
same  idea  was  expressed  by  compounding  nav, 

l62] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 

“all,”  with  a  noun  or  adjective,  as  in  ndyKaXos, 
“very  beautiful.”  But  more  than  this,  the 
very  name  of  Zeus  survives  here  and  there  in 
place-names.  Thus  a  village  at  the  base  of 
Mount  Ida  in  Crete  is  still  known  as  Zoulakko, 
and  the  top  of  the  sacred  Mount  Iuktas  on  the 
same  island  is  called  “Zeus’  monument.”  Bent 
found  the  highest  hill  on  the  island  of  Naxos, 
known  in  antiquity  as  the  mountain  of  Mile¬ 
sian  Zeus,  still  called  Zia.  At  the  entrance  to 
a  cave  near  its  top  is  an  altar — now  called  the 
church  of  Zia — where  a  priest  annually  holds  a 
service  for  the  neighboring  shepherds,  who 
swear  by  it  their  most  sacred  oath.  Schmidt 
mentions  the  common  Cretan  invocation 
“Divine  Zeus,  hear  me,”  and  says  that  an  oath 
sworn  “by  the  god  of  Crete”  is  still  heard  in 
Arachova  and  Delphi  as  an  expression  of  won¬ 
der. 

While  most  of  the  powers  of  Zeus,  the  de¬ 
scendant  of  the  old  Indo-European  sky-god, 
have  descended  to  various  saints,  Zeus  still 
lives  on  in  the  phenomena  of  nature — thunder, 
lightning,  rain — which  are  now  ascribed  to  the 
Christian  God.  An  amatory  distich  from 
Crete,  which  runs,  “He  that  gathereth  the 
clouds,  and  thundereth,  and  raineth,”  recalls 

[63] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


the  Homeric  epithets  of  Zeus,  “cloud-gatherer,” 
“high  thunderer,”  and  “rain-bringer.”  14  The 
thunderbolt,  the  chief  weapon  of  Zeus,  is 
known  to-day  as  the  “lightning-axe”  (do-rpo- 
TreAe/u),  which  is  usually,  but  wrongly,  trans¬ 
lated  as  “starry-axe.”  15  Axe  in  this  sense 
was  never  used  in  antiquity,  but  the  Romaic 
counterpart  is  found  in  the  German  “Donner- 
keil”  The  thunderbolt  is  sometimes  regarded 
as  the  instrument  of  God’s  vengeance,  as  it  was 
once  that  of  Zeus.  Thus  Schmidt  recounts  a 
tale  which  is  an  echo  of  the  mythical  war  be¬ 
tween  the  Titans  and  the  Olympians.  In  it, 
giants  climb  mountains  and  hurl  rocks  at  God, 
just  as  the  Titans  piled  Pelion  on  Ossa  to  scale 
Olympus,  but  God  slew  them  with  his  bolt  even 
as  did  Zeus.  One,  more  courageous  than  the 
rest,  tied  a  bundle  of  reeds  together  to  reach 
heaven,  but  was  burnt  to  death  by  the  light¬ 
ning.  When  his  companions  attacked  again, 
most  were  slain  and  the  rest  enclosed  in  a 
mountain,  as  Enceladus  was  buried  beneath 
JE tna.  Greek  sailors  compare  the  flashes  of 
lightning  with  the  blows  of  spears,  just  as 
Aristophanes  called  lightning  the  “immortal 
lance”  of  Zeus,  and  ZEschylus  spoke  of  the 
god’s  “sleepless  dart.”  Men,  cattle,  and  even 

[64] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


trees  which  have  been  struck  by  lightning,  are 
nowadays  set  apart.  In  antiquity  an  altar 
would  mark  a  spot  thus  visited  and  it  became 
sacred.  Artemidorus  tells  us  that  a  person  so 
struck  was  “excluded  from  citizenship  and  hon¬ 
ored  as  a  god.”  Men  and  cattle  struck  by 
lightning  to-day  generally  do  not  have  to  work 
thereafter.  A  peasant  crosses  himself  in  pass¬ 
ing  a  tree  that  has  been  injured  by  lightning, 
and  never  takes  refuge  under  it  in  storm.  Cer¬ 
tain  Romaic  phrases  remind  us  rather  of  Wotan 
and  Odin  than  of  Zeus,  especially  those  which 
represent  God  as  riding,  since  Zeus  never  rode. 
Thus,  when  it  thunders,  one  hears  that  “God 
is  shoeing  his  horse,”  or  that  “the  hoofs  of 
God’s  horses  are  ringing.” 

The  old  idea  that  rain  and  snow  were  caused 
by  Zeus  is  now  transferred  to  God.  The  an¬ 
cient  phrase  “Zeus  rains”  is  now  changed  to 
“God  rains.”  On  Cythera  rain-water  is  called 
“God’s  water,”  which  recalls  Theophrastus’  as¬ 
cription  of  it  to  Zeus.  The  peasants  of  the 
village  of  Samos  on  Cephalonia  call  a  rainy 
district  “God’s  sea,”  and  at  Arachova  in  Cen¬ 
tral  Greece  the  peasants  during  a  drought  say, 
“Rain,  grandfather!”  which  recalls  the  old 
Athenian  rain-prayer,  “Rain,  dear  Zeus,  on  the 

[65] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


cornlands  of  the  Athenians  and  their  pas¬ 
tures!”  16 

The  place  of  Poseidon,  the  god  of  the  sea, 
who  dwelt  “in  his  famous  palace  in  the  deeps  of 
the  mere,  his  glistening  mansions  builded,  im¬ 
perishable  for  ever,”  is  now  taken  either  by 
St.  Nicolas  or  certain  female  divinities.  But, 
curiously,  one  folk-tale  from  Zante,  known  as 
“Captain  Thirteen,”  recalls  the  lord  of  the  sea 
and  his  trident,  though  even  this  has  been  sus¬ 
pected  as  not  being  a  genuine  tradition. 
Schmidt  has  found  either  Poseidon  or  Nereus 
represented  in  folklore  as  half-human  and 
half-fish  riding  upon  a  dolphin,  and  in  a  car 
propelled  by  dolphins,  and  so  rich — since  he 
owns  everything  that  has  been  lost  in  the  sea — 
that  he  sleeps  on  a  couch  of  gold.  Poseidon’s 
power  to  cause  earthquakes  with  the  stroke  of 
his  trident  is  now  transferred  to  God  on  Zante, 
where  he  causes  such  disturbances  by  “shaking 
his  locks,”  even  as  did  Zeus  in  the  Iliad. 

Only  meagre  traces  of  the  legend  or  cult  of 
Demeter  and  Persephone,  and  these  intermixed 
with  Christian  elements,  are  to  be  found  in 
Greece.  In  general,  as  we  shall  see  later, 
Demeter  has  been  superseded  by  St.  Demetrius, 
the  patron  of  agriculture  and  friend  of  mar- 

[66] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


riage.  In  1860  Lenormant17  heard  from  an 
aged  Albanian  priest  at  the  village  of  Eleusis 
a  legend  about  a  St.  Demetra,  who  was  known 
there  until  recent  years,  many  details  of  which, 
mixed  with  Christian  and  Turkish  ideas,  re¬ 
mind  us  of  the  rape  of  Persephone  by  Pluto 
and  Demeter’s  search  for  her  daughter  as  re¬ 
lated  in  the  old  Homeric  Hymn.  At  the  base 
of  this  story  the  four  chief  characters  of  the 
ancient  version  are  clearly  recognizable, — 
Demeter,  as  St.  Demetra,  Persephone  as  her 
daughter,  Pluto  as  a  Turkish  agha  who  is  in 
love  with  the  daughter  and  carries  her  off  to 
his  Epirote  castle,  and  Triptolemus,  as  the 
youth  who  guides  the  saint  in  her  search,  finds 
the  ravisher,  and  slays  him.  Even  Eleusis  ap¬ 
pears  in  the  form  of  Lepsina,  and  Souli  rep¬ 
resents  the  Epirote  district  of  the  Acheron. 

Vestiges  of  the  legend  of  Demeter  also  re¬ 
appear  in  other  parts  of  Greece.  Thus,  around 
the  Arcadian  lake  of  Pheneus,  which  is  drained 
by  an  underground  channel  which  later  be¬ 
comes  the  river  Ladon,  we  find  such  a  trace. 
It  was  by  this  passage,  according  to  a  legend 
preserved  by  the  Augustan  grammarian  Conon, 
that  Pluto  escaped  with  Persephone.  The  in¬ 
habitants  of  the  present  town  of  Phonia  call 

[67] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


this  channel  the  “Devil’s  Hole/’  and  they  be¬ 
lieve  that  when  the  waters  of  the  lake  are  high 
Hades  is  full  and  that  there  will  be  few  deaths 
in  the  neighborhood.  In  still  other  parts  of 
Greece  the  peasants  speak  of  a  powerful  fe¬ 
male  daemon  who  dwells  within  the  mountain, 
calling  her  the  “Mistress.”  Thus,  in  ^Etolia, 
the  “Mistress  of  the  world”  was  found  by  Law- 
son  to  dwell  inside  a  mountain,  a  beneficent  be¬ 
ing  who  gives  increase  to  crops  and  flocks. 
The  same  title  is  also  found  in  Arcadia,  at  the 
village  of  Pavlitsa,  which  is  on  the  site  of  the 
ancient  Phigalia.  Pausanias  mentions  a  cave 
on  Mount  Elaeus  near  Phigalia,  where  the 
“Black  Demeter”  was  honored  as  the  “Mis¬ 
tress.”  This  cave  has  been  identified  with  one 
now  known  as  the  “Virgin’s  Gully”  in  the  glen 
of  the  Neda  just  west  of  the  town.  Frazer  says 
that  the  story  is  current  in  the  neighborhood 
that  the  Madonna  once  took  refuge  there, 
shocked  by  the  incestuous  love  of  a  brother  and 
sister.  This  surely  recalls  the  story  told  by 
Pausanias  and  other  writers  of  the  retirement 
to  this  cave  of  Demeter,  when  she  was  grieved 
at  her  brother  Poseidon’s  love  for  her.  Schmidt 
also  found  the  title  “Mistress”  in  three  folk¬ 
songs,  each  of  which  recounts  how  the  “Mis- 

[68] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


tress’ ’  is  won  in  marriage  by  a  mortal  lover. 

Artemis,  the  huntress  maiden  “chaste  and 
fair,”  has  been  superseded  for  the  most  part 
by  St.  Artemidus.  But  her  personality,  if  not 
her  name,  has  survived  in  various  localities  of 
Greece.  As  “Queen  of  the  Mountains”  on 
Cephalonia  she  leads  the  Nereids  who  roam 
over  hill  and  dale,  being  taller  and  fairer  than 
the  rest.  Just  so,  in  the  Odyssey ,  Nausicaa 
among  her  maidens  is  likened  to  Artemis  among 
her  nymphs.  In  ALtolia  we  hear  of  “the  lady 
beautiful,”  which  recalls  one  of  Artemis’  titles 
“Calliste.”  On  Zante  she  is  “the  great  lady.” 
Whoever  has  the  misfortune  to  meet  her  or 
to  speak  with  her  loses  sight  and  voice, — which 
reminds  us  of  the  story  of  Tiresias,  who  was 
blinded  for  looking  upon  Athena  while  she  was 
bathing. 

The  character  and  even  the  name  of  Aphro¬ 
dite  still  survive  in  a  few  folk-tales,  although 
St.  Catharine  and  the  Fates  have  taken  over 
most  of  her  functions.  In  certain  tales  she 
appears  as  “the  mother  of  Eros,”  and  in  one 
of  these  we  read  of  a  winged  boy  with  bow 
and  arrows,  and  of  a  garden  filled  with  roses, 
flowers  which  were  once  sacred  to  the  goddess 
of  love.  In  1858  the  Frenchman  Perrot  heard 

[69] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


a  story  from  an  Attic  peasant  in  which  Aphro¬ 
dite  appears.18  A  beautiful  queen  had  a  castle 
at  Daphni  near  Athens  and  also  owned  Acro- 
Corinth,  the  two  places  being  connected  by  a 
subterranean  passage.  Two  kings  were  her 
suitors,  one  of  whom  she  favored.  Fearful  of 
arousing  the  other’s  jealousy,  she  asked  both 
to  help  in  building  a  palace  on  the  Acro- 
Corinth.  To  the  unfavored  suitor  she  gave 
what  she  thought  was  the  harder  task,  the 
building  of  the  fortification  walls  around  the 
top,  to  the  other  she  gave  the  construction  of 
a  well,  and  promised  to  wed  the  one  who  fin¬ 
ished  first.  But  the  well  was  to  prove  the  more 
difficult  task.  When  the  walls  lacked  only  the 
keystone  of  the  gateway  arch,  the  queen  per¬ 
suaded  the  unfavored  lover,  now  within  reach 
of  the  prize,  to  stop,  and  kept  him  occupied  un¬ 
til  the  well  was  finished.  Pausanias  mentions 
a  temple  of  Aphrodite  near  the  present  Daphni, 
the  ruins  of  which  have  been  excavated,  and 
many  writers  speak  of  her  temple  on  Acro- 
Corinth.  Euripides  speaks  of  Acro-Corinth 
as  the  “sacred  hill  and  habitation  of  Aphro¬ 
dite.”  Her  cult  statue  appears  on  imperial 
coins  of  the  neighboring  city  of  Corinth,  which 
was  an  important  center  of  her  worship. 

[70] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 

Apollo,  the  embodiment  of  radiant  youth, 
the  archer-god,  prophet  and  revealer  of  the  fu¬ 
ture,  is  still  known  on  the  island  of  Syra  as  “the 
god  of  Delos.”  Thus  Bent  says  it  is  “a  com¬ 
mon  belief  among  the  peasants  that  the  ghosts 
of  the  ancient  Greeks  come  once  a  year  from 
all  parts  of  Greece  to  worship  at  Delos  .  .  . 
and  even  to-day  they  will  reverently  speak  of 
the  god  on  Delos.’ ’ 

The  marriage  functions  of  Hera,  queen  of 
heaven  and  guardian  of  women,  have  been 
largely  transferred  to  St.  Catharine,  who  is  not 
only  the  patroness  of  love,  but  of  marriage.  On 
the  eve  of  the  saint’s  day,  November  26,  young 
women  are  wont  to  bake  a  cake  with  salt  as 
one  of  its  chief  ingredients.  This  they  eat  and 
then  drink  great  quantities  of  water.  In  the 
troubled  sleep  which  follows  they  believe 
they  will  see  their  future  husbands. 

A  curious  variant  of  the  old  legend  of 
Athena’s  birth  from  the  head  of  Zeus  is  found 
in  a  story  recounted  by  Schmidt.  A  maiden, 
fully  armed,  carrying  lance  and  helmet,  is  born 
of  the  swollen  leg  of  an  unmarried  king.  The 
story  appears  to  have  grown  out  of  genuine  tra¬ 
dition  and  is  not  the  result  of  scholastic  influ¬ 
ence.  It  has  doubtless  also  been  influenced 

[7i] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


by  the  story  of  the  birth  of  Dionysus  from  the 
thigh  of  Zeus. 

Pan,  the  Arcadian  goat-legged  god  of  shep¬ 
herds,  appears  to  live  on  as  the  protector  of 
wild  goats  and  hares,  especially  on  Mount  Par¬ 
nassus.  The  ears  of  such  beasts  are  some¬ 
times  slit  or  partly  closed,  and  such  mutilations 
are  believed  to  be  signs  of  ownership  on  the 
part  of  this  deity.  Longus  mentions  the  sacred 
flock  of  Pan,  and  Pausanias  speaks  of  the  cave 
of  Pan  near  Marathon  where  the  stalactite 
rocks  resemble  his  herd  of  goats.  To-day,  an 
evil  spirit  known  as  Harm ,  in  the  form  of  a 
large  he-goat  with  a.  long  beard,  leaps  upon  the 
goats  and  kills  them,  which  belief  seems  to  be 
a  reminiscence  of  a  more  malignant  aspect  of 
the  god  Pan.  The  shepherds  have  seen  him 
and  heard  the  goats  cry  with  pain.  At  times 
the  spirit  mimics  the  call  or  the  flute  of  the 
shepherds  and  so  draws  the  herd  after  him. 
No  one  dares  to  shoot  him,  lest  his  gun  explode. 
In  the  Peloponnesus  there  is  a  similar  daemon 
known  as  smigdraki,  but  here  he  does  not  have 
the  characteristics  of  Pan,  but  those  of  a  snake, 
and  he  injures  not  only  sheep  and  goats,  but 
also  bees.  Holy  water  protects  both  shepherd 
and  flocks  from  his  attacks.  Schmidt  recounts 

[72] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


a  tale  about  a  goatherd  who  is  presented  by 
Panos  with  a  kid  which  has  a  golden  fleece. 
This  he  sacrifices  to  God,  an  angel  promising 
him  that  he  will  in  return  receive  any  gift  he 
names.  He  chooses  a  magic  flute,  which  pro¬ 
tects  him  from  all  harm,  for  it  can  make  all 
who  hear  it  dance.  Imprisoned  by  the  king, 
the  goatherd  plays  and  even  the  houses  and 
rocks  begin  to  dance  and  every  one  is  crushed. 
This  magic  flute  seems  to  be  a  reminiscence  of 
the  pipes  of  the  old  god  Pan. 

We  now  come  to  the  much  debated  question 
of  how  far  the  Christian  saints  have  replaced 
the  old  gods.  It  may  be  said  at  the  outset  that 
the  notion  that  the  Church  openly  substituted 
saints  for  the  dispossessed  gods  of  similar 
names  and  attributes,  as  voiced  by  Gruppe  and 
other  scholars,  has  been  greatly  exaggerated. 
Similarity  in  name  and  function  did,  in  many 
cases,  help  the  blending  of  saint  and  god,  but 
it  should  certainly  not  be  regarded  as  a  gen¬ 
eral  and  acknowledged  policy  of  the  Church. 
Sometimes  the  Church  would  recognize  the  spe¬ 
cial  sphere  of  a  saint  and  make  it  of  general 
application,  but  more  frequently  the  blend 
must  have  been  merely  the  result  of  local  con¬ 
ditions,  the  allocation  of  the  saint’s  function  be- 

[73] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


ing  due  to  local  legend.  Miss  Mary  Hamilton 
has  made  this  clear  in  her  investigation  of  the 
five  chief  examples  of  saints  whose  names  are 
supposed  to  point  to  pagan  gods, — Dionysius, 
Demetrius,  Artemidus,  Eleutherius,  and  Elias. 
We  shall  briefly  consider  these  in  the  light  of 
the  evidence. 

Gruppe  has  cited  Dionysius  as  an  excellent 
example  of  the  theory  that  saints  were  directly 
evolved  out  of  gods.  The  connection  primarily 
rests  upon  a  story  still  current  on  Naxos,  the 
legendary  home  of  Dionysus  and  one  of  the 
chief  centers  of  his  cult.  Bent  found  that  St. 
Dionysius  was  there  worshipped  and  popularly 
connected  with  the  origin  of  the  vine  as  his  al¬ 
leged  namesake  was.  The  saint  once  jour¬ 
neyed  from  Olympus  to  Naxos,  and  in  the  heat 
of  a  certain  day  sat  down  to  rest.  Close  by  he 
found  and  dug  up  a  pretty  plant,  which  he 
placed  in  the  bone  of  a  bird  to  protect  it  from 
the  sun.  As  the  plant  sprouted  he  encased  it 
in  the  leg-bone  of  a  lion,  and  finally  in  that  of 
an  ass.  When  he  planted  it  on  Naxos  he  could 
not  separate  it  from  the  enveloping  bones.  As 
it  grew  and  bore  grapes  he  discovered  the  first 
wine.  The  resulting  intoxication  had  three 
stages  corresponding  with  the  three  bones:  in 

[74] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


the  first  a  man  would  sing  like  a  bird,  in  the 
second  feel  as  strong  as  a  lion,  and,  lastly,  as 
foolish  as  an  ass.  Lawson  argues  from  this 
story  the  thin  disguise  of  the  pagan  god  under 
the  Christian  saint,  whose  name  is  “changed  by 
an  iota,  but  his  character  not  a  jot.”  But  Miss 
Hamilton  has  not  found  the  connection  so  ob¬ 
vious.  In  the  Synaxarium  Ecclesice  Constanti- 
nopolitaruB  there  appear  three  saints  of  the 
name,  one  the  Areopagite,  another  the  patron 
of  Zante,  and  the  third  a  twelfth  century  monk 
of  Meteora  in  Thessaly.  The  journey  from 
Olympus  seems  to  connect  the  story  with  the 
last  mentioned  one,  since  the  monk  had  a 
monastery  on  Olympus,  and  is  believed  to  have 
rid  the  mountain  of  bears.  But  he  had  no 
Bacchic  attributes,  and  so  the  connection  with 
Dionysus  in  popular  tradition  must  be  later  in 
date  and  purely  local.  The  Naxians  would 
long  remember  the  wine-god,  and,  on  hearing 
of  a  similarly  named  saint,  would  attach  to  him 
the  wine-god’s  attributes,  and  the  local  tradi¬ 
tion  thus  gradually  became  general. 

A  similar  case  is  that  of  St.  Demetrius,  popu¬ 
larly  regarded  as  the  patron  of  farmers  and 
shepherds  and  the  protector  of  agriculture, 
and  consequently,  despite  the  change  in  sex,  the 

[75] 


GREEK  RELIGION 

descendant  of  Demeter.  There  are  several 
churches  in  his  honor,  one  of  which  is  at 
Eleusis.  But  the  saint  cannot  have  been  given 
by  the  Church  to  its  converts  as  the  representa¬ 
tive  of  Demeter.  A  martyr,  named  Demetrius, 
was  killed  in  Rome  on  October  26  of  a  certain 
year,  but  had  no  connection  with  agriculture. 
The  saint’s  festival  falls  in  October,  but  at  a 
date  too  late  for  the  harvest,  even  if  the  festi¬ 
val  in  his  honor  is  celebrated  by  the  agricul¬ 
tural  classes.  At  Salonica,  where  Demetrius 
is  patron  saint,  he  has  no  connection  with  ag¬ 
riculture.  Consequently  this  character  must 
have  originated  through  association  with  the 
old  goddess  Demeter,  and  the  blending  was 
facilitated  by  the  similarity  of  names.  There 
may  have  been  some  local  tradition  about 
Demeter  having  been  transformed  into  the 
saint.  But  at  Eleusis,  the  center  of  Demeter’s 
rites,  we  learn  of  a  St.  Demetra,  uncanonized 
and  known  nowhere  else.  Down  to  the  be¬ 
ginning  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  peasants 
there  worshipped  a  mutilated  ancient  statue  of 
the  goddess,  crowning  it  with  garlands  in  the 
hope  of  good  harvests.  In  1801  two  English 
travelers,  despite  active  opposition  by  the 
peasants,  succeeded  in  removing  the  statue  to 

[76] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


England,  where  it  now  rests  in  the  Fitzwilliam 
Museum  in  Cambridge. 

Another  example  is  St.  Artemidus,  who  is 
commonly  believed  to  have  been  evolved  out 
of  Artemis.  On  the  island  of  Ceos  (Zea)  Bent 
found  St.  Artemidus  reverenced  as  the  patron 
of  weakly  children,  and  there  a  church  is  dedi¬ 
cated  to  him  near  the  town  whither  a  mother 
will  carry  her  child  which  is  afflicted  by  any 
mysterious  sickness,  “struck  by  the  Nereids,” 
as  they  say.  She  strips  and  reclothes  the  child, 
leaving  the  old  clothes  behind.  If  the  child 
grows  strong,  the  mother  thanks  the  saint,  thus 
unconsciously  perpetuating,  as  Bent  believed, 
the  memory  of  the  Ephesian  Artemis,  who  pro¬ 
tected  children,  animals,  and  vegetation.  How¬ 
ever,  the  custom  he  mentions  is  by  no  means 
confined  to  Ceos,  but  is  found  elsewhere,  and 
is  sometimes  connected  with  other  saints,  e.  g., 
with  St.  Elias  at  Chalcis.  Consequently  we 
do  not  have  sufficient  evidence  to  assume  that 
the  attributes  of  Artemis  have  been  transferred 
to  the  saint. 

St.  Eleutherius,  who  is  now  invoked  by 
women  in  childbirth,  bears  a  name  assumed 
to  be  connected  with  Ilithyia,  the  goddess  of 
childbirth,  one  of  whose  epithets  Eleutho,  “the 

[77] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


freer,”  is  quite  similar.  Crete  is  given  by 
some  ancient  writers  as  the  birthplace  of 
Ilithyia,  and  in  Crete  Eleutherius  is  the  patron 
saint  of  mothers,  especially  at  childbirth. 
There  and  also  at  the  Small  Metropolis  or  Old 
Cathedral  of  Athens,  dedicated  to  the  Virgin 
and  to  St.  Eleutherius,  women  celebrate  the 
latter’s  festival  with  offerings.  However,  this 
function  of  the  saint  is  local  and  there  is  no 
evidence  of  it  elsewhere  in  Greece  nor  in  the 
biography  of  the  saint.  The  same  function  is 
attributed  to  St.  Stylianus  at  Arachova  and  in 
other  places  to  the  Panaghia.  So  popular  leg¬ 
end  and  local  practice  explain  the  similar  func¬ 
tion  caused  by  similarity  in  name.  A  sanctu¬ 
ary  of  Ilithyia  stood  near  the  site  of  the  Small 
Metropolis  and  nearby  there  has  been  found  a 
statue-base  dedicated  to  her.  Thus  in  locali¬ 
ties  where  she  was  worshipped  as  patroness  of 
mothers  in  childbirth,  as  in  Athens  and  in 
Crete,  the  saint  who  locally  replaced  her  re¬ 
ceived  a  similar  function  because  of  the  simi¬ 
larity  in  name;  to  that  extent,  then,  the  saint 
is  an  outgrowth  of  the  old  divinity,  although 
he  did  not  generally  replace  the  goddess. 

The  case  of  St.  Elias  is  more  difficult  to  de¬ 
termine.  He  has  his  chapels  on  many  hill-tops 

[78] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


of  Greece,  and  popularly  is  believed  to  have 
power  over  sunlight,  rain,  and  thunder,  the 
latter  being  ascribed  to  the  rolling  of  his  chariot 
wheels.  The  sites  of  his  chapels  are  where  the 
sunlight  lasts  longest  and  the  rain  first  appears. 
His  festival  falls  during  the  heat  of  summer, 
July  20,  and  in  periods  of  drought  people  flock 
to  his  shrines  to  pray  for  rain.  Rain-charms 
are  sometimes  employed  and  also  sun-charms 
or  fire-festivals,  as  on  Mount  Taygetus  where 
a  bonfire  is  lit.  All  this  appears  to  connect  him 
with  Helius,  the  old  Sun-god,  and  advocates 
of  the  theory  point  to  the  correspondence  in 
the  present  pronunciation  of  Elias  and  Helius, 
identical  in  the  genitive.  Of  course  defenders 
of  this  theory  admit  that  in  the  cult  of  the  old 
nature  god  there  is  also  embodied  the  popular 
concept  of  Elijah,  the  greatest  of  the  Hebrew 
prophets,  who  brought  rain  to  famine-stricken 
Palestine  and  called  down  fire  to  consume  his 
own  sacrifice,  and  who  finally  was  translated 
in  a  whirlwind  to  heaven  from  Mt.  Carmel  in 
a  fiery  chariot  drawn  by  horses  of  fire.  To 
Greeks  accustomed  to  worship  Helius  with  his 
fiery  chariot,  the  name  of  Elias  recalled  the  old 
god.  Sacred  icons  still  picture  him  in  a  chariot 
driven  by  fiery  horses.  But  other  scholars 

[79] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


have  denied  all  connection  between  Elias  and 
Helius.  They  point  out  that  the  cult  of  Helius 
was  never  as  popular  in  antiquity  as  that  of 
Elias  is  now,  and  that  there  is  little  evidence 
to  show  that  Helius  was  ever  worshipped  on 
mountain-tops.  They  think  the  story  of  Elijah 
is  sufficient  to  have  made  him  the  patron  of 
high  places.  But  Delehaye’s  contention  that 
the  Helius  cult  was  almost  completely  absorbed 
in  the  worship  of  Apollo  is  untrue,  since,  on 
the  contrary,  it  grew  in  later  antiquity,  espe¬ 
cially  in  connection  with  the  cult  of  Mithras. 
We  also  know  that  a  peak  of  Mount  Taygetus, 
known  as  Taletum,  was  sacred  to  Helius,  since 
Pausanias  says  that  horses  were  there  sacri¬ 
ficed  to  the  god.  Here,  there  is  now  a  chapel 
of  Elias,  which  proves  that  one  place  at  least 
where  Helius  was  formerly  worshipped  has 
been  transferred  to  the  saint.  Perhaps  the 
assimilation  was  local  at  first  and  later  the 
fame  of  the  nature  saint  was  expanded  to  in¬ 
clude  Helius.  Thus,  it  seems  probable  that 
St.  Elias  is  remotely  connected  with  Helius,  but 
that  he  has  been  influenced  mostly  by  the 
biblical  story  of  Elijah. 

Frequently  a  Greek  saint  has  functions 
which  seem  to  have  been  borrowed  directly 

[  80  ] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


from  classical  legends.  There  are  many  such 
examples  recorded  in  the  Acta  Sanctorum. 
Thus,  St.  George  of  Cappadocia  has  a  military 
character,  and  legends  about  him  make  him 
akin  to  the  Greek  Perseus,  if  not  to  the  Egyp¬ 
tian  Horus.  His  icons  frequently  represent 
him  on  horseback  slaying  a  dragon,  thus  re¬ 
calling  Horus  on  horseback  slaying  a  crocodile; 
but  this  similarity  does  not  prove  identity,  since 
most  warrior  saints  are  on  horseback.  At  Ara- 
chova  he  frees  war-prisoners  and  protects  the 
sick  and  lowly.  At  Argostoli  on  Cephalonia 
and  on  Paros  he  goes  by  the  name  of  the 
“Drunkard,”  and  at  his  festival  on  the  latter 
site,  which  falls  on  November  3,  the  date  of 
the  saint’s  death,  there  is  much  drinking,  for 
then  the  new  wine  is  drawn.  This  seems  to 
show  a  connection  with  Dionysus.  Near  Cala- 
mata  the  saint  has  a  chapel,  and  the  story  goes 
that  formerly  during  his  annual  celebration  on 
April  23  a  local  genius  used  to  appear  out  of  the 
ground  and  devour  a  devotee,  until  St.  George 
confined  the  monster  by  placing  a  large  stone 
over  the  hole  on  which  was  the  imprint  of  his 
horse’s  hoof.  Hence  the  saint  received  his 
name  Petalotes,  the  “shoeing-smith.” 

St.  Hippolytus  was  fabled  to  have  been  torn 

[  81  ] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


by  horses,  just  as  Hippolytus  was  in  Athenian 
legend.  St.  Nicetas  recalls  Bellerophon  and 
Pegasus,  since  he  rides  through  the  air  on  a 
white-winged  horse  during  his  festival  on  April 
3.  In  fact,  he  has  a  chapel  on  Helicon  near 
the  old  fountain  of  Hippocrene.  Cosmas  and 
Damian,  the  chief  healing  saints  of  the  Greeks, 
known  as  the  “feeless,”  are  akin  to  Asclepius 
and  to  the  Dioscuri.  They  were  two  Arab  doc¬ 
tors  who  were  converted  to  Christianity  and 
travelled  over  the  Greek  world  curing  the  sick, 
finally  suffering  martyrdom  in  Cilicia  in  287. 
They  had  many  churches,  those  at  Constanti¬ 
nople  and  Rome  being  especially  celebrated. 
One  of  the  six  at  Constantinople  was  famous 
as  early  as  516,  when  Justinian  restored  it  in 
gratitude  for  being  cured  there.  In  popular 
imagination  these  saints  are  regarded  as  kindly 
genii  helpful  to  man,  just  as  Castor  and  Poly¬ 
deuces  were  in  antiquity.  In  fact  the  Dioscuri 
had  a  temple  in  Constantinople  where  incuba¬ 
tion  was  practiced.19  Thus  these  kindly  gods 
were  blended  with  the  benevolent  saints. 

St.  Nicolas  has  largely  replaced  the  func¬ 
tions  of  Poseidon.  Sailors  pray  to  him  before 
making  a  voyage  or  when  in  danger,  and  so  he 
is  known  as  “the  Sailor.”  All  Greek  boats 

[82] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


have  his  icons  in  the  stern  or  on  the  mast. 
Models  of  boats  and  gear  are  his  usual  votive 
offerings.  Nicolas  was  a  bishop  of  Myra  and 
got  his  power  over  the  sea  from  a  miracle  oc¬ 
curring  in  his  life-time,  when  he  once  calmed 
the  storm  which  threatened  a  ship  upon  which 
he  was  journeying.  Before  his  time  sailors 
had  venerated  a  St.  Phocas,  who  was  originally 
a  sailor.  At  first  Nicolas  was  connected  more 
with  Artemis  than  with  Poseidon;  as  bishop 
of  Myra  and  later  of  A^tolia  he  fought  against 
her  cult.  At  the  village  of  Cephalovryso  in 
iEtolia,  near  the  ruins  of  the  ancient  Thermon, 
there  is  a  ruined  chapel  of  St.  Nicolas  standing 
on  the  site  of  a  temple  of  Artemis,  as  we  learn 
from  an  inscription.  Similarly,  near  the  old 
harbor  of  Aulis,  a  ruined  Byzantine  chapel  in 
his  honor  is  supposed  by  Ulrichs  to  have  re¬ 
placed  the  old  Artemisium,  where  Agamemnon 
was  on  the  point  of  sacrificing  his  daughter 
Iphigenia. 

St.  Pelagia  of  Antioch,  whose  festival  falls 
on  October  8,  has  been  connected  by  Usener  20 
with  Aphrodite.  He  believes  that  the  Church 
continued  under  modified  form  to  pay  homage 
to  the  old  goddess  of  carnal  pleasure  and  ani¬ 
mal  fecundity.  But  Delehaye  is  against  the 

[83] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


contention  and  points  out  that  there  were  three 
saints  of  the  name.  One  of  these  was  the  sub¬ 
ject  of  a  famous  legend.  She  was  a  celebrated 
dancing  girl  of  Antioch;  at  the  height  of  her 
fame  she  suddenly  became  converted  by 
Bishop  Nonnus  whom  she  heard  preaching  in 
front  of  a  church  which  she  and  her  roistering 
companions  were  passing.  Being  baptized, 
she  retired  in  the  guise  of  a  man  to  a  cave  on 
the  Mount  of  Olives  at  Jerusalem,  where, 
under  the  name  of  Pelagius,  she  lived  three 
years  until  her  death. 

Certain  other  saints  appear  to  have  received 
their  names  from  those  of  gods  or  ancient  festi¬ 
vals.  Thus  St.  Rousalia  is  named  from  the 
festival  which  was  celebrated  at  Athens  until 
recently.  St.  Donatus  is  connected  with 
^Edoneus  (Hades),  his  chief  churches  being 
situated  in  the  valley  of  the  Acheron  in  Epirus. 
St.  Venere,  invoked  by  Albanian  girls  as  pa¬ 
troness  of  marriage,  is  connected  with  the 
Roman  Venus.  St.  Mercurius  shows  certain 
attributes  of  Hermes.  At  first  he  was  a  mes¬ 
senger  of  Christ,  said  to  have  been  sent  to  slay 
the  emperor  Julian.  Now  he  is  merely  the 
healer  of  ear  diseases  on  Samos.  Hermes’  func¬ 
tion  as  the  guide  of  souls  below  has  fallen  not 

[84] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


to  Mercurius  but  to  St.  Michael.  Near  Taena- 
rum  in  Maina  at  the  mouth  of  a  cave  which  is 
supposed  to  be  an  entrance  to  Hades,  he  stands 
on  guard,  with  a  sword,  instead  of  the  cadu- 
ceus,  in  his  hand. 

Despite  the  fact,  then,  that  the  Christian 
saints  have  in  general  replaced  the  pagan  gods, 
we  have  shown  that  it  is  very  difficult  to  prove, 
in  any  particular  case,  that  the  saints  were  di¬ 
rectly  evolved  out  of  gods  or  that  the  Church 
has  deliberately  substituted  a  saint  for  a  god 
because  of  similarity  in  name  or  function.  The 
process  of  assimilation  was  somewhat  different, 
growing  gradually  out  of  a  folk-consciousness. 


[85] 


III.  THE  GREEK  CHURCH 
FESTIVALS 


THE  MODERN  Greeks  more  than  any 
other  Christian  people  have  retained 
pagan  festivals,  for  many  of  the  East¬ 
ern  Church  celebrations  are  merely  the  sur¬ 
vivals  of  ancient  ones,  and  are  often  held  at 
churches  or  monasteries  whose  saints  have 
taken  the  place  of  the  old  gods.  The  very 
name  for  festival,  panegyri,  is  merely  the 
diminutive  form  of  the  old  name  panegyris, — 
that  is,  an  Assembly  of  the  whole  people”  of 
the  old  City-State  for  the  purpose  of  worship. 
Furthermore,  modern  festivals  often  show  the 
same  mixture  of  religion  and  art,  athletics  and 
trade,  as  their  prototypes  showed  in  antiquity. 

These  festivals  fall  on  saints’  days,  and,  in 
the  rural  districts,  are  commonly  held  at  the 
saint’s  chapel.  Local  poets  or  wandering 
minstrels,  the  latter  the  fast  disappearing  de¬ 
scendants  of  the  Homeric  rhapsodes,  impro¬ 
vise  songs  to  the  accompaniment  of  a  simple 

[86] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


lyre,  singing,  it  may  be,  the  heroic  deeds  of 
the  Clephts,  the  famous  Greek  outlaws  against 
the  Turks.  The  attendant  fairs  attract 
crowds  of  country-folk  who  come  to  trade. 
Dances  are  still  one  of  the  main  features,  tak¬ 
ing  place  either  on  some  paved  threshing-floor 
near  the  chapel  or  on  the  green  within  or  near 
its  precincts.  The  most  popular  dance,  the 
syrtos,  goes  back  to  antiquity.  Some  of  these 
festivals,  like  those  at  Olympia  and  Delphi  in 
antiquity,  have  become  national  in  scope  and 
some  take  place  on  the  very  spots  where  an¬ 
cient  ones  were  held,  as  that  in  honor  of  the 
Panaghia  on  Ithome  where  once  a  festival  was 
held  in  honor  of  Zeus.  This  festival  lasts  for 
several  days  and  huts  are  erected  near  the 
church  to  house  the  crowds.  More  often  the 
women  sleep  within  the  church,  as  at  the 
church  of  the  Panaghia  of  Agiaso  on  Lesbos. 
Meals  are  taken  in  picnic  style,  the  crowds  be¬ 
ing  seated  on  stone  benches  around  stone 
tables,  as  at  the  church  of  the  Panaghia  Pala- 
tiani  on  Cos.  This  method  of  dining  recalls 
the  “large  banquet  rooms”  at  Poseidon’s  shrine 
on  Tenos  mentioned  by  Strabo,  erected  there 
to  take  care  of  the  multitudes  who  repaired 
thither  from  the  neighborhood.  Many  of  the 

[87] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


present  festivals  have  their  origin  in  ancient 
Roman  ones,  since  these  spread  over  Greek 
lands,  but  others  just  as  certainly  are  de¬ 
scended  from  Greek  prototypes.  We  shall 
briefly  consider  examples  of  each. 

The  most  important  festival  of  the  Greek 
Church  is  the  twelve-day  holiday  extending 
from  Christmas  to  Epiphany.  It  coincides 
with  several  pagan  festivals,  notably  with  the 
Roman  Saturnalia.  Under  the  Roman  Empire 
the  festival  of  the  winter  solstice  opened  in 
Rome  with  the  Saturnalia,  a  festival  which  had 
flourished  for  many  centuries  before  in  the 
Republic  and  which  later,  with  the  spread  of 
Roman  rule,  was  taken  over  by  the  Greeks. 
Saturn,  who,  according  to  tradition,  introduced 
agriculture  into  Italy,  was  an  early  harvest  god 
whose  rustic  celebration,  originally  falling  on 
December  19,  gradually  expanded  into  the 
Saturnalia.  The  latter  in  Augustus’  time  were 
held,  in  connection  with  the  Opalia,  in  honor 
of  Ops,  from  December  17  to  20,  but  later 
popularly  from  December  17  to  23.  Later 
Greek  and  Roman  writers,  such  as  the  anti¬ 
quary  Macrobius,  wrongly  identified  the  festi¬ 
val  with  the  old  Greek  Cronia,  merely  replacing 
Saturn  with  Cronus.  Macrobius,  quoting 

[88] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


Philochorus,  states  that  after  sacrifice  had  been 
made  to  Saturn  and  Ops,  “et  frugibus  et  jructi- 
bus  iam  coactis,”  heads  of  families  were  accus¬ 
tomed  to  sit  at  table  with  their  slaves.  From 
this  phrase,  “after  grain  and  fruits  have  been 
collected,”  August  Mommsen  21  has  argued 
for  two  Greek  festivals  known  as  the  Cronia, 
one  of  which  was  celebrated — as  we  learn  from 
a  scholium  on  Demosthenes — after  the  harvest, 
on  the  12th  of  Hecatombaeon,  i.  e.,  at  the  end 
of  July  or  beginning  of  August,  while  the  other, 
after  the  first  harvest,  he  has  assigned  to  the 
beginning  of  winter.  But  there  is  really  no 
evidence  for  the  existence  of  this  later  Cronia 
at  all;  Macrobius’  statement  can  be  referred 
to  the  festival  falling  in  the  latter  part  of  the 
summer  when  the  corn  and  early  fruits  have 
been  gathered.  But  even  the  known  summer 
Cronia  were  never  important,  as  is  shown  by 
the  fact  that  few  writers  mention  this  festival. 
Moreover,  the  only  real  resemblance  between 
the  Cronia  and  the  Saturnalia  was  the  freedom 
allowed  slaves;  but  even  that  was  charac¬ 
teristic  of  several  other  Greek  festivals,  such 
as  one  held  in  Crete  in  honor  of  Hermes. 
Since  the  Cronia  had  ceased  by  the  time  of 
Lucian  and  Plutarch,  when  we  meet  the  name 

[89] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


in  these  later  writers  we  are  not  to  understand 
the  Greek  festival,  but  the  Roman  Saturnalia , 
translated  by  the  old  Greek  word.  Thus  it  is 
clear  that  the  Christmas  season  is  to  be  con¬ 
nected  with  the  Roman,  and  not  with  the  Greek 
festival. 

The  Saturnalia  were  regarded  as  commemo¬ 
rative  of  the  happy  days  under  Saturn,  when 
equality  reigned  and  violence  and  oppression 
were  unknown.  During  the  celebration  schools 
and  courts  were  closed,  no  wars  were  declared 
nor  battles  fought,  and  no  malefactors  were 
tried  or  punished.  In  short  it  was  a  time  for 
relaxation  and  unrestrained  merriment,  when 
only  the  most  necessary  work  was  performed 
and  only  that  which  conduced  to  pleasure  and 
amusement.  Equality  was  observed  in  all 
classes;  slaves  sat  at  their  masters’  tables, 
where  they  were  served  by  them  or  their  guests 
and  had  freedom  of  speech.  Gifts  were  ex¬ 
changed,  and  drinking,  gambling,  singing,  and 
practical  jokes  were  the  order  of  the  day. 
Many  of  these  characteristics  reappear  in  the 
Greek  Christmas  of  to-day. 

At  Rome  the  Saturnalia  were  followed  by 
the  most  popular  of  festivals,  the  Kalendx , 
falling  on  New  Year’s  Day,  and  the  Vota ,  fall- 

[90] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 

ing  on  January  3.  By  the  third  century  A,  D. 
these  were  celebrated  on  an  extensive  scale 
with  gaiety  and  the  exchange  of  gifts.  Early 
Church  canons  mention  them,  especially  one 
passed  at  a  synod  held  in  652,  which  tried  to 
abolish  them  along  with  several  others  by  pro¬ 
hibiting  dances  and  rites  after  the  ancient 
manner,  i.  e.,  masquerading,  drunken  revels, 
calling  on  Dionysus,  etc.,  all  of  which  prove  the 
survival  o.f  Dionysiac  rites  at  such  celebrations. 
These  festivals  resemble  the  gaiety  of  the  mod¬ 
ern  New  Year’s  in  many  ways.  Nowadays, 
Greek  villages  are  decorated,  banquets  are 
held,  gambling  is  indulged  in,  singing  and 
masquerading  are  popular,  and  gifts  are  ex¬ 
changed. 

The  Christmas  part  of  these  festivities  was 
for  a  long  time  relatively  unimportant  in  the 
Eastern  Church.  Only  recently,  under  West¬ 
ern  influence,  has  Christmas  increased  in  popu¬ 
larity.  We  hear  of  Christmas  in  the  Western 
Church  as  being  celebrated  on  December  25 
for  the  first  time  in  354  a.  d.,  and  somewhat 
later  in  the  Eastern  Church.  Thus  John 
Chrysostom  in  his  Christmas  sermon  of  388 
says  it  was  introduced  at  Antioch  from  the 
West  less  than  ten  years  before.  Before  that 

[9i] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


date  the  birth  of  Christ  had  been  celebrated  on 
Epiphany  Day,  January  6.  In  ancient  Greece 
there  had  been  a  Sun-festival  known  as  the 
Helia  celebrated  on  December  25.  The  Sun- 
god  later  became  identified  with  the  Persian 
Mithras,  whose  cult  was  the  greatest  rival  of 
Christianity,  since  the  rites  of  Mithraism  were 
similar  and  likewise  taught  immortality. 
Aurelian,  in  the  third  century,  blended  Helius 
with  Mithraic  beliefs,  having  built  a  temple  in 
the  Campus  Martius  at  Rome  which  was  dedi¬ 
cated  on  the  god’s  supposed  birthday,  Decem¬ 
ber  25.  But  the  cult  waned  before  the  growing 
power  of  Christianity.  Augustine  warned  the 
Christians  not  to  worship  the  day  of  the  Sun, 
but  that  of  Him  who  made  the  Sun.  The  Sun- 
festival,  however,  was  taken  over  by  the 
Church,  and  historically  Christmas,  New 
Year’s,  and  the  days  between  are  connected  not 
only  with  the  Saturnalia  and  Kalendx,  but  also 
with  the  Helia ,  and  therefore  show  an  origin 
largely  pagan. 

New  Year’s  is  now  dedicated  to  St.  Basil. 
On  the  evening  before,  bands  of  boys  go  from 
house  to  house  singing  a  song  of  the  birth 
of  Christ,  which  ends  with  good  wishes  for  the 
coming  year  and  requests  for  gifts  from  the 

[9  2] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


house  occupants.  In  Athens  they  carry  a 
model  of  a  ship,  which  may  refer  to  the  first 
verse  of  the  song,  “St.  Basil  is  come  from 
Caesarea,’ ’  or  may  go  back  to  the  worship  of 
Theseus  which  was  instituted  in  the  sixth  cen¬ 
tury  b.  c.  at  Athens  by  Pisistratus,  when  the 
ship  of  the  Cretan  voyage  played  a  role  in  the 
Panathenaic  festival.  In  Athens  New  Year’s 
is  a  very  gay  occasion.  On  the  day  before, 
Hermes  Street  is  crowded  with  people  carrying 
all  sorts  of  noise-producing  devices  and  throw¬ 
ing  quantities  of  confetti.  Cakes  with  coins  in¬ 
side,  like  the  old  English  Twelfth-night  cakes, 
are  prepared  in  every  house,  cut  up  at  mid¬ 
night,  and  distributed.  The  person  drawing 
the  portion  containing  the  coin  is  regarded  as 
lucky.  At  ten  o’clock  the  next  day  crowds  of 
townspeople  follow  the  royal  family — escorted 
by  the  Evzoni  or  royal  guards,  foreign  diplo¬ 
mats,  ministers  and  deputies  of  the  State — to 
the  Metropolis  Church  to  worship.  Later  the 
King  and  his  family  return  to  the  palace, 
where,  at  noon,  a  levee  is  held  which  the  mil¬ 
itary  and  naval  officers  attend. 

Epiphany,  the  commemoration  of  Christ’s 
baptism,  is  now  called  the  “Feast  of  Lights.” 
In  many  parts  of  Greece  there  takes  place  a 

[  93  ] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


peculiar  ceremony  known  as  “Blessing  of  the 
Waters/’  which  recalls  the  old  Greek  rain- 
charms.  On  the  island  of  Imbrus  there  is  a 
regular  rain-charm  ceremony,  when  townsmen 
and  visitors  may  get  a  wetting.  A  girl,  dressed 
in  leaves  and  flowers,  leads  a  procession  of 
other  girls  through  the  village.  Water  is 
poured  over  her  from  every  house  and  the 
whole  band  of  girls  sings.  On  the  Turkish  is¬ 
land  of  Castellorizo  east  of  Rhodes  a  rain- 
charm  is  supervised  by  the  Church.  One  of 
the  most  picturesque  ceremonies  takes  place 
at  the  Church  of  the  Transfiguration  in  the 
harbor  of  Syra  and  has  been  described  by  Lucy 
Garnett.  By  eight  o’clock  on  the  morning  of 
Epiphany  day  the  church  is  crowded;  on  a 
platform  in  the  nave  there  is  placed,  adorned 
with  branches  and  leaves,  a  pictorial  repre¬ 
sentation  of  Christ’s  baptism  along  with  a 
silver  bowl  over  which  a  dove  is  suspended. 
After  the  liturgy  is  over  the  priests  ascend  the 
dais  and  read  the  Epistle  and  Gospel  of  the  day. 
The  bishop  blesses  the  bowl  of  water  and  every 
one  present  endeavors  to  secure  some  of  the 
holy  water.  Later  a  procession  is  led  by  a 
band  of  musicians,  and  the  priests,  preceded  by 
acolytes  with  silver  lamps  and  censers,  carry  a 

[94] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 

large  cross  to  the  water  front,  the  way  thither 
being  lined  by  soldiers  with  their  bayonets 
fixed.  The  cross  is  then  cast  into  the  sea,  and 
whoever  dives  and  recovers  it  may  keep  it  for 
the  day  and  collect  contributions  in  recognition 
of  the  feat.  The  purpose  of  this  and  similar 
ceremonies  at  Phalerum,  Athens,  and  elsewhere 
is  merely  to  ensure  fine  weather.  Something 
similar  occurred  anciently  in  times  of  drought 
in  the  cult  of  Zeus  Lycaeus  in  Arcadia.  Pau- 
sanias  tells  how  the  priest  used  to  go  to  the 
spring  Hagno  on  top  of  Mount  Lycaeus  to  pray 
and  sacrifice  and  let  down  into  the  water  an 
oak-branch,  whose  stirring  would  cause  a  mist 
to  arise,  the  precursor  of  rain-clouds.  In  the 
modern  ceremony  the  Christian  cross  has  taken 
the  place  of  the  ancient  oak-branch,  sacred  to 
Zeus. 

We  next  turn  to  the  Easter  festivities  of  the 
Eastern  Church.  They  are  ushered  in  by  the 
long  period  of  abstinence  known  as  the  “Great 
Fast”  or  Lent,  which,  since  the  seventh  century, 
has  lasted  for  forty  days.  The  two  Sundays 
preceding  Lent  are  known  as  “Meat  Sunday” 
and  “Cheese  Sunday”  respectively,  and  the 
week  between  them,  called  “Cheese-eating 
week,”  corresponds  with  the  Carnival  of  the 

[95] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


Western  Church.  The  celebration  of  the  Car¬ 
nival  varies  in  different  parts  of  Greece.  Only 
in  Athens  and  a  few  other  large  towns  is  it 
celebrated  in  the  Roman  Church  fashion  with 
parades,  confetti  battles,  and  masked  balls. 
One  must  go  to  the  country  to  see  the  classical 
survivals,  especially  the  Bacchic  reminiscences. 
R.  M.  Dawkins  22  has  discovered  such  survi¬ 
vals  in  certain  Thracian  villages,  especially  at 
Viza,  the  site  of  the  ancient  Bizya,  capital  of 
the  tribe  of  the  Asti.  Here  on  “Cheese  Mon¬ 
day”  before  the  village  church  a  drama  is  en¬ 
acted  in  which  there  are  many  Bacchic  remi¬ 
niscences — the  goat-skin  head  disguises  of  the 
two  chief  actors,  the  marriage  and  mimetic 
slaying  of  one  of  them,  the  mourning  over  his 
body  by  his  wife,  and  his  resurrection.  Then 
the  mummers  yoke  themselves  to  a  plough  and 
pray  for  good  harvests  as  they  draw  it  along. 
Even  a  cradle,  called  the  likni,  contains  the 
effigy  of  a  babe  born  out  of  wedlock  and  recalls 
the  fan-shaped  basket  (A Uvov)  in  which  Dio¬ 
nysus,  the  natural  son  of  Semele,  was  fabled  to 
have  been  carried.  Similar  Bacchic  survivals 
have  been  found  also  at  a  festival  celebrated  in 
honor  of  Constantine,  the  patron  saint  of  Costi, 
a  village  of  Thrace  on  the  Black  Sea  coast. 

[96] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 

Here  the  priests  known  as  Anastenaria  play 
the  chief  role  with  dancing  images  of  the  saint. 
The  dance  gradually  grows  frenzied,  and  finally 
the  priests  flee,  disappearing  over  the  fields 
“like  birds.”  Only  those  who  thus  become 
possessed  can  join  the  ascetic  brotherhood  of 
priests.  Such  frenzied  dances  and  Maenad 
flights,  despite  certain  Christian  rites  and  the 
use  of  images,  vividly  recall  the  worship  of  the 
old  Wine-god. 

Lent  is  celebrated  strictly  in  respect  to  diet 
and  amusements.  It  ends  Holy  Week,  whose 
solemnities  culminate  in  Easter  Sunday.  Good, 
or  rather  “Great,”  Friday,  as  it  is  called  by  the 
Orthodox,  that  is,  Crucifixion  Day,  is  the  chief 
day  of  the  week  when  every  one  goes  to  church 
to  reverence  the  silk-cloth — epitaphios — on 
which  the  entombment  is  pictured.  Then  cere¬ 
monies  of  penance  are  performed  and  mourn¬ 
ing  is  shown  by  burial  processions,  the  tolling 
of  bells,  the  singing  of  dirges,  the  kissing  the 
bier,  etc.  At  midnight  of  Saturday  the  Res¬ 
urrection,  the  central  doctrine  of  Orthodox 
Christianity,  is  celebrated,  and  again  repeated 
on  Easter  noon,  when  the  Church  has  returned 
to  gaiety,  as  is  shown  by  feasting,  the  firing  of 
guns,  and  general  relaxation.  The  Easter  cere- 

[97] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


monies  last  over  the  following  Tuesday,  when 
the  townsfolk  go  into  the  country,  where  the 
boys  and  girls  dance,  and  the  youths  shoot  at 
a  mark  or  indulge  in  athletic  sports. 

Many  scholars  have  traced  the  celebration  of 
the  Carnival  back  to  the  Roman  Saturnalia. 
Thus  Frazer  23  is  led  to  believe  that  it  may  be 
merely  “the  continuation,  under  a  thin  disguise, 
of  a  period  of  temperance  which  was  usually 
observed,  from  superstitious  motives,  by  Italian 
farmers  long  before  the  Christian  era.”  He 
believes  that  the  old  Roman  festival,  although 
throughout  the  historical  period  it  was  always 
celebrated  in  December,  at  a  remote  date  may 
have  been  celebrated  in  February  or  March, 
approximately  the  date  of  the  modern  Carnival. 
Of  this,  however,  he  admits  there  is  no  direct 
evidence.  Rut  the  Eastern  Lent  might  better 
be  compared  with  the  fast  which  preceded  the 
celebration  of  the  Eleusinian  mysteries,  com¬ 
memorating  Demeter’s  period  of  abstinence 
from  food  during  her  search  for  her  ravished 
daughter  Persephone.  The  Lesser  Eleusinia — 
originally  the  Attic  mysteries  of  Agrae,  held 
on  the  banks  of  the  Ilissus — symbolized  the 
resurrection  of  nature,  and  their  celebration 
took  place  during  the  middle  of  the  month  of 

t9«] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 

Anthesterion  (the  end  of  February  and  be¬ 
ginning  of  March),  that  is,  about  the  date  of 
Easter,  when  Core  (Persephone)  was  supposed 
to  return  in  the  young  corn. 

The  Easter  rites  of  crucifixion  and  resurrec¬ 
tion  also  have  their  counterparts  in  the  ancient 
worship  of  Attis  and  Cybele.  This  cult  was 
popular  at  Rome,  where  the  festival  lasted 
several  days  at  about  the  time  of  the  spring 
equinox.  An  effigy  of  the  dead  Attis  was  tied 
to  a  pine-tree  which  was  felled  in  the  woods, 
and,  adorned  with  violets,  the  sacred  flowers 
of  the  god,  was  brought  to  the  temple  of  Cybele. 
March  24  was  a  “day  of  blood”  when  the  de¬ 
votees  cut  themselves  with  knives,  as  the 
Persian  dervishes  do  now.  The  effigy  was 
burnt  and  the  fast  kept  up  till  night,  when  the 
mourning  was  turned  into  joy,  and  the  carnival 
of  the  Hilaria  began  the  following  day.  On 
the  27th  a  procession  took  place  to  the  sacred 
brook  Almo  in  the  Campagna  where  the  image 
of  Cybele  was  bathed  by  the  priests,  that  is, 
a  spring  rain-charm  was  performed  connected 
with  Attis  as  a  god  of  vegetation,  whose  return 
signified  the  revival  of  the  crops.  So  the  rites 
now  celebrated  at  Easter  are  doubtless  con¬ 
nected  in  some  ways  with  several  pagan  festi- 

[99] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


vals.  Identification  with  any  of  these  is,  how¬ 
ever,  scarcely  possible,  as  the  evidence  is  slen¬ 
der.  We  know  that  in  antiquity  abstinence 
from  food  and  from  the  gratification  of  the 
appetites  was  practiced  by  many  peoples  at 
seed-time  for  the  purpose  of  promoting  the 
growth  of  the  crops,  that  is,  as  a  sort  of  charm. 
Easter  now  is  a  “paschal”  feast  which  goes 
back  to  the  Hebrew  Passover  (“Pesach” ) . 
The  early  Christians  refused  to  celebrate  the 
Jewish  feast  and  only  recognized  the  Resurrec¬ 
tion.  The  two  are  separated  in  early  Church 
calendars,  the  Resurrection  being  the  movable 
Jewish  Passover,  being  assigned  at  first  to 
March  27,  and  the  Crucifixion  to  March  25. 
But  there  is  no  historical  reason  for  the  death 
of  Jesus  being  placed  at  that  date.  The  date 
may  well  have  come  in  some  way  from  the 
Roman  cult  of  Attis,  which  has  to  some  extent 
supplanted  the  Christian  Easter. 

Another  important  Greek  festival  is  the 
“Assumption  of  the  Virgin,”  poetically  called 
by  the  Greeks  the  “Falling  Asleep  of  the 
Virgin,”  which  is  universally  celebrated  in 
the  Eastern  Church  on  August  15.  We  shall 
briefly  describe  its  celebration  at  the  monastery 
of  Vourkano  on  Mount  Ithome  in  Messenia. 

[  IOO] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


According  to  a  tradition  preserved  by  the 
monks  of  Mount  Eva  a  burning  tree  was  seen 
one  night  on  the  opposite  ridge.  Crossing  over 
they  found  an  icon  of  the  Panaghia  hanging 
to  a  tree  with  a  lighted  candle  beside  it,  and 
they  brought  the  icon  to  their  monastery.  It 
soon,  however,  found  its  way  back  again,  which 
showed  the  monks  that  it  was  the  Virgin’s  will 
to  change  the  location  of  the  monastery.  This 
is  now  at  Vourkano,  which  is  situated  on  the 
Eastern  slope  of  the  mountain  just  below  the 
saddle  between  the  two  peaks  of  Ithome  and 
Eva.  On  the  top  of  Ithome  was  the  old  pre¬ 
cinct  of  Zeus  Ithomatas.  The  tree-trunk  on 
which  the  icon  was  found  hanging  is  now  the 
lintel  of  the  doorway  of  the  monastery,  badly 
hacked  by  the  faithful  who  believe  that  the 
wood  can  cure  fevers.  A  fast  precedes  the  As¬ 
sumption,  beginning  August  6.  On  the  12th 
the  icon  is  carried  in  procession  around  the 
country-side,  and  sheep,  goats,  and  oxen  are 
sacrificed.  Three  days  later  it  is  returned  to 
the  monastery.  But  on  the  24th  it  again  goes 
on  its  travels,  being  taken  to  the  town  of  Nisi 
near  Calamata  where  the  festival  is  concluded 
with  a  fair. 

The  origin  of  this  festival  is  to  be  found  in 

[  IOI  ] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


an  ancient  harvest  celebration.  At  Arachova 
on  August  6  first-fruits  of  the  wheat  crop  are 
offered  to  the  Panaghia,  and  wheat  cannot  be 
eaten  until  it  has  been  blessed  by  the  priest  on 
that  day.  On  Zante  wheat  and  currants  are 
put  in  a  basket  together  with  a  burning  candle 
and  taken  to  church  on  August  15.  The  priest 
blesses  it  and  places  a  part  on  the  altar  and  dis¬ 
tributes  the  rest.  The  cakes  known  as  Kolyva 
— a  mixture  of  wheat  and  grain,  which  we  shall 
discuss  further  on — are  brought  on  August  6 
to  all  churches  for  blessing,  and  are  then 
divided  and  eaten  by  the  congregation.  Such 
cake-offerings  can  be  traced  to  the  sixth  cen¬ 
tury  in  connection  with  the  Assumption,  and 
seem  to  be  the  survival  of  first-fruit  offerings, 
such  as  those  offered  the  Syrian  goddess  of 
agriculture,  and  now  transferred  to  Mary. 

A  festival  which  shows  clear  survivals  of 
pagan  rites  is  the  one  held  on  March  25,  at  the 
Church  of  Our  Lady  of  Annunciation  on 
the  island  of  Tenos  in  the  Cyclades.  This  pic¬ 
turesque  festival  has  been  described  by  many 
visitors,  notably  by  Miss  Hamilton.  Pilgrims 
flock  hither  from  mainland  Greece,  the  islands, 
Asia  Minor,  Egypt,  and  even  Turkey,  thus  re¬ 
calling  the  ancient  pilgrimage  to  the  nearby 

[  102  ] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


island  of  Delos,  which  was  the  chief  event  of 
the  old  Greek  religious  year.  The  fame  of 
this  modern  Mecca  is  only  a  century  old,  since 
the  church  is  dated  traditionally  back  to  the 
day  on  which  the  Greek  Revolution  was  de¬ 
clared.  The  usual  dream  preceded  the  founda¬ 
tion  of  the  church,  when  the  Virgin  appeared 
to  an  islander  and  directed  him  to  search  at  a 
particular  spot  for  her  icon.  He  was  unsuccess¬ 
ful  in  his  search,  but  later  a  nun  was  given  the 
same  directions  in  three  dreams,  and  the  icon 
was  finally  found.  It  was  in  a  very  dilapidated 
condition,  as  it  was  cut  in  twain  and  had  been 
scorched  in  the  invasion  of  the  Saracens.  Still 
it  has  been  regarded  ever  since  as  a  masterpiece 
of  St.  Luke,  to  whom  so  many  of  the  venerated 
icons  of  the  Greek  Church  are  ascribed.  The 
chapel  and  well  on  whose  site  the  church  was 
built  belonged  to  an  older  one  of  St.  John, 
burnt  in  1200.  But  many  marble  fragments 
show  that  in  antiquity  the  site  wa^  that  of  a 
temple.  It  is  now  the  wealthiest  church  in 
Greece,  since  many  millions  of  drachmae  are 
donated  to  it  each  year.  Much  of  this  money 
is  converted  into  precious  stones  which  are  set 
in  the  frame  around  the  icon.  A  paved  way 
leads  up  to  the  church,  along  which  pilgrims 

[  103  ] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


frequently  creep  on  hands  and  knees,  suffering 
from  lameness,  which  is  the  chief  ill  supposed 
to  be  cured.  The  usual  neighborhood  fair  is 
held  in  booths  where  all  sorts  of  articles  are 
sold  to  the  visitors,  especially  silver  crucifixes, 
and  models  of  parts  of  the  body.  Various 
amusements  are  also  offered.  The  pilgrims  are 
cared  for  at  night  inside  or  outside  the  church, 
in  the  porticoes  of  the  monastery  and  else¬ 
where,  where  mattresses  are  laid  for  the  sick, — 
each  bringing  his  own  bed,  cooking  utensils, 
and  food. 

The  icon  is  enclosed  in  a  gilded  box  covered 
over  with  glass  and  stands  on  a  small  altar.  It 
is  twelve  by  eighteen  inches  in  size  and  only  the 
head,  scarcely  recognizable,  is  visible.  The 
lid  is  devotedly  kissed.  On  the  evening  before 
Annunciation  Day  the  Panaghia  is  supposed 
to  make  her  cures.  The  vigil  begins  at  eight, 
when  church  and  crypt  are  filled.  The  latter 
is  a  long,  dark  room  where  rows  of  people  stand 
on  either  side,  leaving  free  a  center  aisle  up 
and  down  which  the  streams  of  pilgrims  go 
to  the  altar  and  back.  Despite  the  number  of 
visitors — now  perhaps  4,000  to  5,000  a  year, 
although  formerly  there  were  many  more — only 
a  few  miracles  of  healing  are  recorded.  Law- 

[  I04  ] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


son  gives  the  official  number  down  to  the  year 
1898  as  forty-four,  which  is  considerably  less 
than  one  a  year  since  the  founding  of  the 
church.  Of  these,  twelve  were  cases  of  in¬ 
sanity,  eleven  of  blindness,  and  ten  of  paralysis. 
But  various  visitors  report  having  seen  many 
who  had  come  with  crutches  depart  without 
them.  Patients  often  remain  a  long  time,  one 
paralytic  sailor  being  said  to  have  remained 
four  months,  until  his  patience  was  rewarded 
with  a  cure.  At  dawn  of  the  next  day  the 
icon  is  carried  in  procession  through  the  village, 
and  a  last  opportunity  is  thus  given  to  the  ex¬ 
pectant  pilgrims  to  receive  the  Virgin’s  bless¬ 
ing,  as  the  shadow  of  the  icon  falls  upon  them 
along  the  way.  Sometimes  the  icon  fares  fur- 
ther  afield.  During  the  serious  illness  of  King 
Constantine  in  1917,  it  was  carried  to  Athens 
by  a  bishop  and  placed  at  the  king’s  head  with 
the  hope  that  thereby  a  cure  might  be  effected. 
Those  baffled  at  Tenos  do  not  give  up,  how¬ 
ever,  but  frequently  go  to  some  other  church 
with  the  hope  of  being  cured  by  some  other 
icon.  Just  so  in  antiquity  valetudinarians  trav¬ 
elled  from  shrine  to  shrine.  Thus  Aristides, 
the  friend  of  Marcus  Aurelius,  spent  a  large 
part  of  his  life  visiting  temples  in  quest  of 

[  i  os  ] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


health.  His  six  Sermones  sacri  form  a  diary  of 
his  thirteen  years  of  illness  and  ultimate  re¬ 
covery. 

This  festival  on  Tenos  is  one  of  the  best  ex¬ 
amples  of  the  survival  of  an  ancient  religious 
custom.  For  passing  the  night  in  or  near  the 
church  in  the  vicinity  of  the  icon  of  the  Virgin 
with  the  hope  of  being  cured  of  disease  recalls 
the  old  temple-sleep  or  incubation.24  The 
custom,  although  not  universal,  was  wide¬ 
spread  in  antiquity,  and  centered  in  the  belief 
that  while  the  patient  was  asleep  the  soul  was 
released  from  the  body  and  became  more  sus¬ 
ceptible  to  divine  influence,  since  the  god  could 
thus  better  enter  into  communication  with  his 
devotee.  Uneducated  Greeks  and  Romans,  in 
common  with  primitive  men  elsewhere,  be¬ 
lieved  that  disease,  both  physical  and  mental, 
was  largely  the  result  not  of  natural  causes, 
but  of  the  interference  of  an  offended  deity  or 
malevolent  spirit.  Such  spirits,  therefore,  had 
to  be  driven  out  by  prayer  and  sacrifice.  At 
the  end  of  antiquity  the  practice  of  incubation 
became  very  popular,  especially  under  the 
Empire,  when  certain  healing  shrines  gained  an 
international  reputation.  Asclepius  surpassed 
all  other  healing  gods,  and  his  shrines  in  Epi- 

[  106] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


daurus  and  on  the  island  of  Cos  were  especially 
famous;  here  purificatory  rites  and  medical 
methods  such  as  therapeutic  diet  and  exercise, 
helped  by  the  use  of  narcotics,  incense,  and 
even  mechanical  contrivances,  were  believed 
to  effect  cures.  Besides,  the  temples  of 
Asclepius  were  generally  located  in  salubrious 
spots.  Similarly,  among  the  modern  Greeks 
many  diseases,  especially  those  of  a  nervous 
character,  are  largely  ascribed  to  the  influence 
of  daemons.  When  a  Greek  despairs  of  the 
ordinary  doctor’s  help  he  has  recourse  to  the 
priest  in  order  that  the  evil  spirit  may  be  ex¬ 
orcised  through  the  favor  of  the  local  saint. 
Then,  by  fasting,  prayer,  and  especially  incu¬ 
bation,  as  anciently,  he  confidently  hopes  for 
relief.  Each  saint  has  appropriated  a  certain 
sphere  in  the  cure  of  such  diseases,  and  pre¬ 
scribes  certain  ceremonies. 

Sculptures  have  always  been  excluded  from 
the  Greek  Church,  but  sacred  icons  have  been 
allowed  to  satisfy  the  instinct  for  idolatry. 
They  are  of  a  traditional  Byzantine  type,  the 
work  of  monks  or  priests.  They  are  usually 
conventional,  lifeless,  and  out  of  proportion 
and  perspective,  even  though  at  times  they  may 
show  great  technical  skill.  Yet,  despite  their 

[  107  ] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


deficiencies  there  is  always  something  dignified 
about  the  poorest  of  them.  Every  cottage  has 
its  crude  icon  of  a  saint  before  which  a  tiny 
lamp  is  always  kept  burning — a  custom  which 
recalls  an  ancient  one  mentioned  by  Lucian. 
If  the  lamp  goes  out,  it  is  a  sign  of  impending 
evil.  The  kissing  of  icons  also  recalls  the  an¬ 
cient  custom  of  kissing  statues.  Cicero  speaks 
of  a  bronze  Heracles  at  Agrigentum,  whose 
mouth  and  chin  were  worn  away  by  kissing, 
just  as  is  the  toe  of  St.  Peter’s  statue  in  the 
Church  of  Saint  Peter  at  Rome  to-day.  Dur¬ 
ing  Church  festivals  the  icon  is  adorned  with 
myrtle  and  laurel,  as  statues  were  frequently 
garlanded  in  antiquity.  The  carrying  of  the 
icon  in  procession  also  has  its  counterpart  in 
antiquity.  Thus  the  cult  statue  of  the  Eleu- 
therian  Dionysus  at  Athens  was  carried  forth  on 
fixed  days  each  year  from  the  city  shrine  of  the 
god.  And  many  other  examples  could  be  cited. 

Various  relics  with  curative  powers  are  also 
carried  in  procession.  Thus,  on  the  island  of 
Zante,  Schmidt  records  that  the  body  of  the 
patron  saint  is  carried  through  the  streets  on 
the  anniversary  of  his  death,  and  that  in  the 
village  of  Phagia,  in  the  church  of  St.  Marina, 
an  icon  exists  to  which  insane  folk  are  brought 

[  108  ] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 

on  the  birthday  of  the  saint.  The  priest  dips 
his  finger  into  the  oil  in  front  of  the  icon,  and 
places  the  finger  upon  the  lips  of  the  patient, 
while  he  puts  his  other  hand  on  the  patient’s 
head,  and  then  invokes  the  saint  to  cast  out  the 
daemon.  In  the  church  of  St.  Luke  outside 
Thebes  there  is  a  Hellenistic  sarcophagus, 
which  is  believed  to  be  that  of  the  evangelist. 
Women  kneel  before  it  and  receive  the  marble 
scrapings  which  the  priest  peels  off  with  his 
knife;  these  are  placed  in  water  which  is  drunk 
by  children  suffering  from  fever. 

An  excellent  example  of  prehistoric  pillar- 
cult  is  furnished  by  the  chapel  of  “St.  John  of 
the  Column”  in  Athens.  This  is  built  around 
an  unfluted  Corinthian  column  which  projects 
through  the  roof.  As  the  column  was  found  on 
the  spot,  it  doubtless  belonged  to  some  old 
shrine  of  the  Roman  period.  The  chapel  is 
sacred  to  John  the  Baptist,  the  patron  of  fevers. 
The  story  runs  that  the  saint,  when  about  to 
die,  tied  all  human  diseases  to  the  base  of  a 
column  by  means  of  silk  threads — fevers  with 
yellow  threads,  measles  with  red,  etc.  He 
then  said:  “When  I  die,  let  any  sick  come 
and  tie  a  silk  thread  to  the  column  and  be 
•  healed.” 


[  109  ] 


GREEK  RELIGION 

Sick  people  come  to  the  chapel  and  pray, 
especially  on  his  festival  day  August  28. 
They  affix  colored  threads  or  bits  of  rags  or 
even  locks  of  hair  to  the  column  with  wax  in 
the  belief  that  their  disease  will  be  transferred 
to  it.  Even  silver  pieces  are  placed  on  it,  in 
order  to  get  oracular  responses;  if  they  adhere, 
a  cure  is  promised.  The  column  is  covered 
with  offerings  during  the  hot  days  of  August 
and  September  when  fever  is  rife.  Similarly, 
Athenian  mothers  take  their  sick  children  to 
the  chapel  of  St.  Marina  at  the  foot  of  Ob¬ 
servatory  Hill,  undress  them  and  leave  their  old 
clothes  behind,  in  the  belief  that  they  are  thus 
transferring  the  disease.  Nearby  is  a  smooth 
inclined  rock,  polished  by  generations  of 
women  who  have  slid  down  it  with  the  idea  that 
it  would  cure  them  of  barrenness. 

It  is  still  the  custom  in  Greece,  as  it  was  in 
antiquity,  to  hang  up  models  in  wax  or  silver 
of  the  parts  of  the  body  cured  by  the  saint — 
arms,  hands,  feet,  eyes,  breasts,  etc.  Grate¬ 
ful  mothers  even  bring  small  models  of  their 
children,  just  as  they  did  in  ancient  times. 
Thus,  we  read  in  the  Palatine  Anthology  of  wax 
models  of  a  girl  and  her  brother  being  dedi¬ 
cated  by  their  parents  in  fulfillment  of  a  vow. 

[  no] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


Sailors  dedicate  models  of  ships.  Tapers,  oil, 
first-fruits  of  the  harvest,  and  money  are  con¬ 
stantly  offered.  At  times  the  icon  of  a  saint 
may  be  covered  with  bits  of  money  stuck  on 
by  wax.  Lucian  mentions  a  statue  of  Pelichus, 
to  whose  thigh  silver  coins  were  affixed  with 
wax,  since  it  was  believed  to  have  the  power 
of  curing  fevers.  Great  numbers  of  votive 
offerings — anathemata — were  brought  to  the 
shrines  of  the  old  healing  gods,  especially 
models  of  parts  of  the  body.  In  the  ruins  of 
the  temple  of  Asclepius  at  Epidaurus  there 
have  been  found  such  models  and  also  marble 
tablets  on  which  the  healed  part  was  repre¬ 
sented,  carved  in  relief.  Metal  ones  have  been 
found  at  the  shrine  of  Amphiaraus  at  Oropus. 
Lord  Aberdeen  in  1803  found  many  such 
marble  relief  models  on  the  rock  wall  of  the 
Pnyx  at  Athens.  Others  have  found  similar 
ones  on  the  south  side  of  the  Acropolis  and 
elsewhere.  Such  models  in  terra  cotta  have 
been  found  in  various  parts  of  Greece  and 
Italy. 

In  this  brief  sketch  of  a  few  of  the  Greek 
Church  festivals  we  should  not  omit  two 
minor  domestic  festivals  which  show  most  di¬ 
rect  survivals  from  antiquity,  the  singing  in 

[in] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


procession  of  the  song  of  the  swallow  as  the 
harbinger  of  spring,  and  the  Rousalia,  or 
“Feast  of  Roses.” 

In  Macedonia  and  the  Peloponnesus  to-day 
bands  of  boys  parade  the  village  streets  on  the 
first  of  March,  carrying  a  painted  wooden  swal¬ 
low  on  the  end  of  a  garlanded  pole.  At  the 
same  time  they  sing  a  song  congratulating  the 
people  on  the  return  of  spring,  and  ask  for 
gifts.  The  same  custom  existed  among  the 
old  Greeks,  and  one  of  the  swallow-songs,  once 
popular  on  Rhodes,  where  it  was  sung  in  the 
month  of  Boedromion  (September-October), 
has  been  preserved  to  us  in  the  Deipno sophists 
of  Athenaeus,25  beginning 

“T he  swallow  has  come,  has  come, 

'Bringing  a  good  season  and  a  joyful  time. 
Her  belly  is  white,  her  back  is  black  ,” 

and  ending 

“Open,  then,  open  the  door  to  the  swallow, 

For  we  are  not  old  men,  but  boys!” 

One  of  the  present  versions,  as  sung  in 
Thessaly,  is  an  echo  of  this.  I  quote  the  begin¬ 
ning  of  it  in  the  translation  of  John  Addington 
Symonds: 


[  112  ] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


“S he  is  here,  she  is  here,  the  Swallow! 

Fair  seasons  bringing,  fair  years  to  follow! 

H cr  belly  is  white, 

H er  back,  black  as  night !'’ 

At  the  end  it  voices  a  similar  appeal  for  gifts. 

The  “Feast  of  Roses”  was  celebrated  in 
Athens  until  recently,  around  the  so-called 
Theseum  on  Tuesday  of  Easter  week,  which 
is  still  a  favorite  picnic  day.  The  festival  did 
not  fall,  however,  on  the  day  of  St.  George,  the 
patron  of  the  Theseum.  Country-folk  came 
into  town  carrying  musical  instruments  and 
sang  a  song,  beginning: 

“Good  day,  Lady  mine,  and  prosperity  to  you, 
my  children/' 

A  boy  baby  was  lifted  into  the  air  three  times 
with  a  prayer  for  its  health  and  that  of  other 
children.  Later  in  the  day  the  Rousalia  were 
held.  In  Macedonia,  Abbott  found  the  festi¬ 
val  celebrated  on  the  twenty-fifth  day  after 
Easter  and  with  the  definite  purpose  of  ward¬ 
ing  off  scarlatina.  Then  ring-shaped  cakes, 
called  kolouria,  are  made  and  hung  over  the 
house-door.  This  ceremony,  as  performed  in 
the  village  of  Melenik,  is  called  Rousa — per¬ 
haps  from  the  red  color  of  the  eruptions  in 

[  113  ] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


scarlatina,  although  the  word  may  be  a  corrup¬ 
tion  of  the  Latin  Rosalia.  Pouqueville  26  long 
ago  found  the  ceremony  existing  in  Epirus,  and 
Miss  Hamilton  states  that  the  Vlachs  still  cele¬ 
brate  the  festival  for  six  weeks  in  summer  in 
honor  of  the  dead,  when  people  go  to  the  ceme¬ 
tery  and  place  roses  on  the  graves  as  we  do  on 
Decoration  Day.  The  festival,  then,  is  con¬ 
nected  in  name  with  the  Roman  Rosalae  escae , 
“rose  food,”  an  annual  rose-feast  when  tombs 
were  adorned,  the  ceremony  of  hanging  gar¬ 
lands  being  known  as  the  Rosalia.  The  old 
name  is  said  to  be  found  still  in  the  Pelopon¬ 
nesus,  although  there  it  is  not  connected  with 
a  rose-festival,  but  with  one  in  honor  of  the 
dead,  which  falls  on  the  Saturday  before  Whit¬ 
sunday.  Only  in  Macedonia,  where  it  is  con¬ 
nected  with  children  and  health,  has  the  festi¬ 
val  lost  all  its  earlier  association  with  the  dead. 
The  modern  festival,  therefore,  is  related  in 
some  way  to  the  very  ancient  Athenian  flower- 
festival  known  as  the  Anthesteria,  which  was 
celebrated  in  classical  times  in  honor  of  Dio¬ 
nysus  for  three  days  in  the  month  of  Anthes- 
terion,  corresponding  with  the  first  three  days 
of  our  March.  The  chief  feature  of  the 
Anthesteria  was  the  procession  on  the  second 

1 114 1 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


day  which  commemorated  the  entry  of  Dio¬ 
nysus  Eleutherius  from  outside  the  city  into 
the  small  shrine  of  the  god  in  the  Ceramicus. 
This  was  followed  by  his  symbolic  marriage 
with  Basilinna,  the  wife  of  the  king  archon. 
The  last  day’s  celebration,  however,  was 
chiefly  in  honor  of  the  dead,  since  it  contained 
a  Thanatousia.  A  mixture  of  corn  and  honey 
was  placed  in  a  pit  and  pots  of  seeds  were 
offered  on  altars  by  the  priestesses  of  the 
Basilinna.  On  this  day  the  worshippers  did 
not  partake  of  the  offerings  as  they  had  done 
on  the  preceding  days,  but  all  offerings  were 
devoted  to  the  dead  or  to  chthonian  deities,  the 
main  purpose  of  this  oldest  part  of  the  celebra¬ 
tion  being  to  drive  out  evil  spirts  and  to  ensure 
good  crops. 

Enough  has  been  said,  then,  to  show  that 
some  of  the  most  important  festivals  of  the 
Christian  Church,  such  as  those  of  Christmas 
and  Easter,  are  profoundly  influenced  by  pagan 
rites  which  reach  back  to  remote  antiquity; 
and  that  many  features  of  others  celebrated 
in  the  Eastern  Church,  such  as  the  Assumption 
of  the  Virgin  and  the  Annunciation,  preserve 
religious  customs  carried  over  from  ancient 
prototypes. 


[  IIS] 


IV.  DIVINATION  AND 
SACRIFICE 


E  SHALL  next  briefly  consider  the 
practice  of  divination  and  sacri¬ 
fice  in  modern  Greece,  both  of 


which  show  analogies  to  ancient  rites. 

Divination,  the  world-wide  practice  of  rites 
by  which  the  future  is  unveiled  and  the  will  of 
supernatural  powers  is  learned,  was  a  common 
phenomenon  of  ancient  Greek  religion.  The 
rites  were  both  natural  and  artificial.  The 
former  depended  upon  the  psychical  condition 
of  the  diviner,  who  was  believed  to  be  inspired, 
as  the  Homeric  prophets  and  the  Delphic 
Pythia;  the  latter  made  use  of  magic  and 
augury,  the  interpretation  of  signs  and  omens, 
such  as  the  flight  of  birds  or  the  appearance  of 
the  entrails  of  sacrificed  animals.27 

Of  all  the  means  used  the  oracle  was  the 
most  important.  In  Homer’s  day  local  oracles 
were  less  consulted  than  individual  prophets, 
because  the  latter  were  regarded  as  directly 
inspired.  But  in  the  historical  period  the 


[  n6] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


seats  of  the  great  oracles  were  revered  as  the 
spots  where  the  gods  most  clearly  disclosed 
their  wills,  at  Dodona  through  the  rustling  of 
leaves,  at  Delphi  through  the  disordered  ut¬ 
terances  of  an  inspired  priestess.  While  the 
answers  were  often  vague  and  cryptic,  on  the 
whole  these  oracles  stood  for  ethical  and  reli¬ 
gious  progress,  and  the  interpreting  priests 
were  actively  interested  in  the  welfare  of 
Greece. 

Dreams  have  always  been  regarded  both  by 
the  ignorant  man  and  by  the  philosopher  as  re¬ 
vealing  the  will  of  supernatural  beings.  The 
old  Greeks  looked  upon  them  as  the  messengers 
of  Zeus.  Pindar  and  Aeschylus  mention  the 
well-known  idea  that  during  sleep  the  mind  is 
unfettered  and  can  soar  into  the  realm  of  spirit 
and  commune  with  divinity  and  clearly  see  the 
future.  Even  the  scientific  Aristotle  looked 
upon  dreams  as  the  source  of  things  divine. 
In  later  antiquity  dreams  were  scientifically 
studied.  Thus  Artemidorus  of  Ephesus  wrote 
a  treatise  in  five  books  called  Oneirocritica, 
which  explains  five  different  classes  of  dreams. 
Temple-sleeping,  perhaps  reaching  back  as  far 
as  Homer,  was  the  chief  method  of  enticing 
dreams,  for  then  the  god  was  wont  to  appear 

[  117] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


and  give  counsel.  The  earliest  literary  evi¬ 
dence  of  incubation  as  a  part  of  cult  ritual  is 
the  Plutus  of  Aristophanes,  the  scene  of  which 
is  laid  in  the  temple  of  Asclepius  at  Athens  or, 
perhaps,  in  the  Pirseus.  The  gods  at  whose 
shrines  incubation  took  place  were  chthonian, 
that  is,  heroes  who  had  died  and  become  in¬ 
vested  with  earth  powers.  As  we  have  already 
remarked,  it  was  most  common  in  shrines  of 
Asclepius;  in  Hellenistic  days  it  was  also 
common  in  those  of  Serapis,  an  Alexandrine 
god — who  had,  as  Bouche-Leclercq  has  aptly 
said,  “a  Greek  body  haunted  by  an  Egyptian 
soul” — and  his  accompanying  goddess  Isis, 
whose  cult  flourished  in  the  later  ages.  It  was 
also  practiced  at  certain  oracles,  such  as  those 
of  Amphiaraus  at  Oropus  and  Trophonius  at 
Lebadea. 

Omens  were  constantly  heeded  in  antiquity. 
An  unlucky  one  might  delay  a  battle  or  a  re¬ 
treat,  as  the  eclipse  of  the  moon  destroyed  the 
hopes  of  the  Athenian  army  at  Syracuse.  A 
seer  was  even  more  important  to  an  army  than 
the  general.  The  flight  of  birds,  such  as  the 
eagle  of  Zeus,  “the  surest  sign  among  winged 
fowl,”  and  the  hawk  of  Apollo,  their  number, 
cries,  and  direction,  were  common  ways  of  di- 

[  n8] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


vining  according  to  Homer,  but  the  least  im¬ 
portant  in  classical  times.  The  entrails  of  ani¬ 
mals  were  carefully  studied,  a  science  which 
Greece  ultimately  owed  to  Babylonia.  Plato 
regarded  the  liver  as  the  mirror  in  which  the 
power  of  thought  was  reflected  and  as  the  seat 
of  life.  It  was  the  Romans,  however,  who  per¬ 
fected  this  science,  which  they  borrowed  from 
the  Etruscans  who  had  received  it  from  the 
Orient.  The  appearance  of  a  snake,  as  at  the 
sailing  of  the  Greek  fleet  at  Aulis,  a  chance  re¬ 
mark,  a  sneeze,  all  were  regarded  as  showing 
the  will  of  the  gods.  Casting  lots  was  common 
in  Homer  and  remained  the  regular  way  of  vot¬ 
ing  in  democratic  Athens  throughout  the  his¬ 
torical  period. 

It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  all  these  meth¬ 
ods  of  divining  reappear  in  Greece  to-day 
among  the  common  people. 

Instead  of  the  inspired  prophets  of  antiquity, 
nowadays  it  is  insane  people  who  arouse  a  feel¬ 
ing  of  awe,  since  their  incoherent  utterances  are 
often  taken  for  wise  predictions.  Such  per¬ 
sons  are  generally  regarded  as  above  their  fel¬ 
lows  and  so  can  live  without  working.  It  is 
now  considered  lucky  to  meet  one,  although  in 

1 1 19] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


Theophrastus’  day  it  was  unlucky,  when  one 
had  to  spit  in  his  bosom  to  avert  the  baleful  in¬ 
fluence. 

To-day  the  dream  is  the  usual  method  em¬ 
ployed  to  learn  the  will  of  God  and  his  saints. 
It  is  the  ordinary  method  in  the  Church,  as  we 
have  seen,  of  revealing  the  location  of  sacred 
icons  on  spots  where  churches  or  monasteries 
are  to  be  erected.  We  have  already  discussed 
the  visitation  of  Mary  to  her  devotees  asleep 
in  her  churches.  Dream-books,  recalling  that 
of  Artemidorus,  are  still  popular  and  may  even 
be  found  in  houses  where  the  Bible  is  un¬ 
known.  We  have  mentioned  the  custom  of 
girls  on  the  eve  of  St.  Catharine  eating  salt 
cakes  and  drinking  wine  or  water,  and  then,  in 
their  troubled  sleep,  seeing  their  future  hus¬ 
bands. 

There  are  even  survivals  of  oracles  in  Greece. 
The  one  best  known,  although  it  now  enjoys 
only  a  local  fame,  is  on  Amorgus,  an  isle  which 
enjoyed  little  ancient  fame,  as  it  was  a  place 
of  exile  in  the  Roman  Empire.  Here,  built 
over  a  prophetic  stream,  is  the  Church  of  St. 
George  Balsamites,  whose  priest  is  supposed 
to  be  able  to  divine  the  future.  In  a  side- 
shrine  there  is  a  large  square  block  of  marble 

[  120] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


hollowed  out  and  polished  within.  It  stands 
on  the  native  rock  and  is  covered  with  a  lid 
which  can  be  fastened.  In  the  bottom  is  a 
hole  in  which  there  is  a  plug.  The  priest  prays 
to  the  saint,  and  then  draws  some  of  the  water 
from  the  receptacle  into  a  cup.  According  as 
particles  of  dirt,  insects,  hairs,  bits  of  leaves, 
etc.  appear  on  the  surface,  the  answer  is  given. 
Thus,  the  presence  of  hair  means  illness  or 
trouble.  At  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  cen¬ 
tury  the  oracle  was  very  famed,  but  the  re¬ 
sponses  were  differently  given.  A  Jesuit  priest 
of  Santorini,  Robert  Sauger,  has  left  an  account 
of  his  visit,  published  in  1699.  Then  the  cavity 
filled  and  emptied  itself  several  times  each 
hour,  though  he  could  detect  no  hole  at  the 
bottom.  If  the  consultant  found  it  full  when 
he  looked  in,  the  answer  was  favorable;  but  if 
empty,  the  answer  was  unfavorable.  Sailors 
from  Amorgus  and  nearby  islands  are  said  to 
consult  the  oracle  yet  for  the  success  of  voy¬ 
ages,  business  ventures,  etc. 

Another  method  of  divination  is  found  at 
the  shrine  of  the  Panaghia.  at  Cremasto  on 
Rhodes.  Here  the  consultant  places  a  coin 
on  the  icon.  If  it  sticks,  his  wish  is  granted; 
but  in  any  case  the  priest  gets  the  coin.  It  is 

[  121  ] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


said  that  over  6,000  people,  including  Turks, 
consult  this  shrine  annually.  The  moisture 
which  is  believed  to  trickle  down  the  icon  at 
midnight  is  absorbed  in  bits  of  cotton-wool  and 
these  are  used  as  amulets.  On  Zante,  near  the 
village  of  Callipado,  Schmidt  found  an  icon  of 
Mary  in  a  rock-grotto,  which  was  revered  by 
the  peasants,  who  placed  copper  coins  against 
it;  if  they  stuck,  the  answer  was  favorable. 

The  divine  power  of  springs,  fountains,  and 
streams  was  well-known  in  antiquity.  Thus 
the  waters  of  the  Styx  were  adjured  by  the  im¬ 
mortals,  and  the  sacred  springs  of  Colophon, 
in  Ionia,  of  Hysise  in  Boeotia,  and  Cassotis  at 
Delphi,  were  famous.  Before  consulting  the 
oracle  at  Delphi  pilgrims  washed  in  the  foun¬ 
tain  of  Castalia.  Its  efficacy  is  shown  by  a 
Pythian  response  thus  translated  by  Sandys: 

“T o  the  pure  precincts  of  Apollo's  portal, 

Come,  pure  in  heart,  and  touch  the  lustral  wave ; 
One  drop  sufdceth  for  the  sinless  mortal; 

All  else,  e'en  Ocean  s  billozvs,  cannot  lave  ” 

The  belief  that  those  who  drank  of  it  were 
poetically  inspired  was  a  later  invention  of 
Roman  poets.  The  belief  in  the  deadly  water 
of  certain  streams,  such  as  that  of  the  Styx 

[  122  ] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


just  mentioned,  would  explain  why  oaths  were 
sworn  by  it,  since  it  was  a  sort  of  poison  ordeal, 
and  it  was  believed  that  the  water  would  kill 
a  perjurer.  Chemical  analysis  of  the  Styx, 
however,  has  disclosed  no  substance  in  solution, 
so  that  the  only  injury  which  it  could  cause  is 
from  its  coldness,  since  its  glacial  water  de¬ 
scends  from  the  top  of  Mount  Chelmus,  the 
ancient  Aroania.  The  same  notion  was  at  the 
base  of  the  modern  witch  ordeal:  the  suspected 
person  was  cast  into  a  pool  with  a  stone  at¬ 
tached  to  her  back.  If  she  floated,  she  was 
guilty,  since  the  “sacred  element”  would  reject 
a  criminal.  Similarly,  Ino  had  a  pool  near  the 
village  of  Epidaurus-Limera  in  Laconia,  into 
which  during  her  festival  barley  loaves  were 
cast  for  consultation;  if  they  sank,  the  water 
accepted  them,  and  the  sign  was  favorable;  but 
if  they  floated,  the  opposite  was  the  case. 
Zosimus,  a  historian  of  the  late  fifth  century, 
mentions  a  lake  at  Aphaea  in  Syria  into  which 
gold,  silver,  and  raiment  were  cast;  these  would 
sink,  if  accepted,  but  would  float,  if  rejected. 
Water  from  sacred  springs  is  still  used  in 
Greece.  It  comes  generally  from  mineral 
springs  and  so  has  curative  qualities,  and  fre¬ 
quently  churches  and  monasteries  are  built 

[  i23  ] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


over  such  spots.  Two  such  springs  are  located 
on  the  western  side  of  Mount  Hymettus,  near 
which  are  the  convents  of  Caesariani  and  Carea, 
the  former  dating  from  the  eleventh  century. 
Hither  sterile  women  repaired  in  antiquity,  a 
practice  which  is  still  continued.  Ovid  men¬ 
tions  one  of  these  springs  as  a  jons  sacer,  and 
Photius  says  it  was  sacred  to  Aphrodite  as 
healer. 

Magic,  sorcery,  and  witchcraft  are  as  com¬ 
mon  now,  especially  in  Thessaly,  as  in  the  time 
of  Theocritus’  Simaetha.  Old  crones  are  still 
consulted  by  the  love-sick  for  philtres,  incanta¬ 
tions,  and  all  sorts  of  antidotes  against  spells, 
and  they  are  always  ready  to  read  the  stars  or 
to  interpret  dreams. 

No  country  exists  where  everyday  life  is 
so  molded  by  common  superstitions  as  Greece. 
We  shall  mention  only  a  few  which  have  an¬ 
cient  parallels.  Hesiod  gives  a  long  list  of 
lucky  and  unlucky  days.  In  Plato’s  time  cer¬ 
tain  days  were  presided  over  by  malevolent 
powers,  when  certain  sorts  of  work  could  not 
be  done,  and  no  assembly  or  court  could  be 
held.  Thus  the  last  three  days  of  each  month 
were  set  apart  for  the  chthonian  deities,  and 
no  enterprise  was  then  begun,  for  example,  in 

[  124] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 

March,  during  the  Athenian  festival  of  the 
Anthesteria ,  and  in  June  at  the  Plynteria,  or 
festival  of  humiliation.  The  third  and  thir¬ 
teenth  of  each  month  were  unlucky,  and  the 
fifth  was  devoted  to  the  Furies.  To-day  all 
Tuesdays  are  unlucky,  when  no  hair  is  cut. 
Saturday,  the  Jewish  Sabbath,  is  especially  un¬ 
lucky  in  Thessaly  and  Macedonia.  May  is 
unlucky  for  marriages,  and  February  is  known 
as  the  “lame  month,’7  and  in  some  parts  of 
Greece  a  child  born  in  that  month  is  expected 
to  be  crippled.  In  Macedonia  all  Wednesdays 
and  Fridays  of  March  are  unlucky.  All  over 
Greece  on  certain  days  of  March  and  August, 
varying  somewhat  in  different  places,  it  is 
necessary  to  abstain  from  certain  sorts  of  work. 
These  days,  generally  the  first  three  or  five  and 
the  last  three  or  five  of  these  months,  are 
known  as  Drymiais,  a  name  which  is  also  ap¬ 
plied  to  vague,  though  personal  spirits  sup¬ 
posed  to  be  active  at  the  time.  On  these  days 
no  trees  can  be  pruned  and  the  peasants  do  no 
washing,  fearing  lest  the  clothes  will  rot,  and 
they  do  not  bathe  lest  their  bodies  will  swell. 
In  August,  bathers  are  armed  with  a  rusty  nail 
against  such  spirits.  Tylor  has  regarded  the 
Drymiais ,  therefore,  as  survivals  of  the  Stone 

[  125  ] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


Age,  since  iron  is  hostile  to  such  spirits.  But 
why  these  particular  days  are  unlucky  we  can¬ 
not  say,  or  what  the  spirits  are  from  which 
they  are  named.  Perhaps  these  spirits  are  sur¬ 
vivals  of  the  wood  nymphs  of  spring  and  the 
water  nymphs  of  fall.  Thus  Schmidt  has  re¬ 
ferred  them  to  the  old  Dryads,  whose  name 
is  not  dissimilar. 

The  nails  are  cut  only  on  certain  days  in 
Greece.  Pliny  says  that  the)/  should  be  cut 
only  on  the  nones,  and  the  hair  only  on  the 
seventh  and  ninth  of  each  month.  If  a  mule 
foals(!)  in  the  spring,  it  means  calamity;  this 
idea  recalls  the  story  of  the  foaling  of  the  mule 
of  Zopyrus,  which  Herodotus  says  portended 
the  fall  of  Babylon,  an  unlikely  event,  though 
possible  “when  mules  bore  offspring.”  It  is 
still  unlucky  to  hear  a  crow  on  the  housetop, 
just  as  it  was  in  Hesiod’s  day.  A  weasel  seen 
near  a  Greek  house  portends  evil,  although  the 
opposite  is  true  in  Macedonia.  Suidas  says 
that  a  weasel  on  the  roof  portended  evil.  But 
if  a  snake  is  found  in  a  house,  it  is  a  lucky 
sign,  for,  as  we  shall  see  in  the  next  chapter,  the 
snake  is  usually  regarded  as  the  genius  loci 
now,  as  it  was  in  antiquity.  A  dog  howling  at 
night  is  still  the  sign  of  death,  as  it  was  in  the 

[  126] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


days  of  Theocritus.  Crackling  logs  on  the 
hearth  mean  now,  as  Suidas  says  they  did  an¬ 
ciently,  that  a  friend  or  good  news  is  on  the 
way.  A  spluttering  candle  means  misfortune 
to-day  as  it  did  in  Propertius’  day. 

Involuntary  movements  of  the  body  still 
have  their  significance.  Ringing  in  the  ears 
signifies  that  you  are  being  talked  about.  If 
it  be  in  the  left  ear  it  is  unfavorable  talk,  but 
if  in  the  right,  favorable,  although  this  inter¬ 
pretation  is  reversed  in  Macedonia.  Lucian 
has  the  same  notion.  To-day,  the  twitching  of 
the  eyelid  has  a  meaning  similar  to  that  which 
it  had  in  antiquity:  if  it  be  in  the  right  lid,  it 
augurs  good  news  or  that  a  friend  is  expected; 
but  if  in  the  left,  bad  news  or  an  enemy.  Just 
so  the  lovelorn  swain  in  Theocritus’  Idyll  feels 
his  right  eye  twitch  and  so  hopes  to  see  his 
Amaryllis.  Sneezing  still  means  prosperity  or 
the  confirmation  of  what  has  just  been  said,  on 
the  theory  that  an  evil  spirit  has  been  expelled. 
In  the  Odyssey,  Telemachus  sneezes  and  con¬ 
firms  the  words  of  Penelope.  Xenophon  ac¬ 
cepts  the  sneeze  as  a  sign  of  approval  from 
Zeus.  Aristotle,  Pliny,  Petronius,  and  many 
other  writers  mention  this  sign.  The  super¬ 
stition  continued  through  the  Middle  Ages  and 

1 127 1 


GREEK  RELIGION 


is  world-wide  to-day.  The  German  “Gesund- 
heit ”  and  the  English  “God  bless  you”  recall 
the  old  Greek  exclamation  “Zeus  save  you.” 

The  ancient  belief  in  reading  the  future 
from  the  flight  of  birds  has  survived.  Almost 
the  same  birds  are  believed  now,  as  in  anti¬ 
quity,  to  reveal  the  future  by  their  cries,  num¬ 
ber,  direction,  etc., — the  eagle,  vulture,  hawk, 
crow,  and  others.  One  cry  may  signify  pros¬ 
perity,  and  three  adversity,  although  in  anti¬ 
quity  three  meant  prosperity.  The  eagle’s 
scream  means  conflict,  the  raven’s  croak  death, 
the  woodpecker’s  cry  intrigue,  and  the  cuckoo’s 
an  epidemic.  Birds  flying  on  the  right  still 
portend  success. 

Divining  by  the  bones  and  entrails  of  ani¬ 
mals  is  nowadays  wide-spread  from  Britain  to 
China  and  is  also  common  among  the  Ameri¬ 
can  Indians.  The  use  of  the  shoulder-blade  of 
a  lamb  or  kid  is  a  relic  of  the  ancient  haruspi- 
cation  which  has  survived  in  Greece  and  in 
many  other  countries.  In  Britain  the  art  is 
still  known  as  “reading  the  speal-bone,”  where 
“speal”  is  a  corruption  of  the  French  espaule. 
In  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries  the 
outlawed  Clephts  in  Greece  still  used  the 
shoulder-blade  to  divine  the  future,  and  nowa- 

[  128] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


days  Greek  peasants  use  it  to  tell  the  success 
of  their  crops,  the  advisability  of  marriage,  and 
many  other  ventures.  The  bone  is  cleansed 
and  held  to  the  light,  and  its  color,  veins,  spots, 
are  all  full  of  meaning. 

The  casting  of  lots  is  as  old  as  Homer. 
Chance  words  overheard  by  the  diviner  or  any¬ 
one  else  are  as  efficacious  now  as  in  antiquity. 
A  ceremony  called  Cledona  takes  place  on  St. 
John’s  day,  June  24. 28  A  boy  is  sent  the  eve¬ 
ning  before  to  fetch  “speechless”  water  from 
a  spring,  so-called  because  he  is  not  to  speak  to 
anyone  while  bringing  it.  On  his  return  a 
company  of  girls,  who  have  banded  together 
to  learn  the  future,  drop  into  the  jar,  each  for 
herself,  a  coin,  a  ring,  a  button,  or  some  other 
common  object,  and  the  jar  is  left  covered  for 
the  night  for  the  Nereids  to  cast  their  spell 
over  it.  In  the  morning  each  girl  sings  an 
amatory  distich,  while  the  person  holding  the 
jar  draws  out  a  trinket,  and  the  object  so 
drawn  fits  one  of  the  verses  sung  and  will  refer 
to  the  girl  to  whom  it  belongs.  Or  she  may 
stand  at  the  door  and  listen  to  the  passers-by, 
and  thus,  by  a  chance  name  or  remark,  learn 
about  her  future  husband.  Again  she  may 
take  a  salt  cake,  divide  it  into  three  parts  and 

1 129] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


tie  ribbands,  red,  black,  and  blue,  to  the  parts, 
and  lay  them  under  her  pillow.  In  the  morn¬ 
ing  she  draws  a  ribband  by  chance;  if  a  red 
one,  her  husband  will  be  a  bachelor,  if  a  black 
one,  a  widower,  and  if  a  blue  one,  a  stranger. 

In  our  opening  chapter  we  mentioned  the 
spirit  of  bargaining  characteristic  of  ancient 
sacrifice  and  prayer.  It  had  been  carried  to 
such  extremes  that  it  aroused  the  biting  sar¬ 
casm  of  Lucian,  who  said  a  poor  man  propiti¬ 
ated  a  god  by  kissing  his  own  hand,  while  a 
farmer  donated  an  ox,  a  shepherd  a  lamb,  a 
goatherd  a  goat,  and  others  incense  or  a  cake. 
“So  nothing,  it  seems,  that  they  (i.  e.,  the  gods) 
do,  is  done  without  compensation.  They  sell 
men  their  blessings,  and  one  can  buy  from  them 
health,  it  may  be,  for  a  calf,  wealth  for  oxen,  a 
royal  throne  for  a  hundred.”  29  This  spirit  of 
bargaining  is  still  prevalent  in  the  Eastern 
Church,  as  the  great  number  of  votive  offerings 
at  Tenos  and  elsewhere  shows.  Gifts  have 
generally  replaced  the  old  sacrificial  animals, — 
candles  and  objects  of  value  being  presented 
at  churches  either  for  favors  already  received 
or  for  those  hoped  for.  We  might  mention 
gold  and  silver  objects,  richly  bound  Bibles, 
eastern  embroideries,  models  of  parts  of  the 

[  130] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


body  healed,  models  of  houses,  ploughs,  boats, 
etc.,  as  thank  offerings  of  to-day.  Of  the  sec¬ 
ond  type  to  win  favors,  we  might  adduce  the 
simple  cakes  which  are  set  out  by  women  in 
caves  or  at  home  for  the  Fates  or  the  Nereids, 
or  pork  for  the  Callicantzari.  Cake-offerings 
of  the  present  day  certainly  go  back  to  anti¬ 
quity.  Two  kinds,  kolyva  and  kolloura,  are 
especially  used  to  appease  malevolent  spirits, 
and  merit  a  word  of  explanation. 

We  have  already  spoken  briefly  of  the  cakes 
which  still  go  by  their  ancient  name  kolyva , 
and  which  were  used  in  antiquity  for  certain 
festivals.  Schmidt  found  on  the  Ionian  islands 
reminiscences  of  these  cakes.  They  are 
chiefly  composed  of  wheat,  but  contain  many 
other  ingredients,  such  as  raisins,  almonds, 
peas,  pomegranate  and  anise  seed,  and  nuts. 
They  are  offered  at  sowing,  at  harvest,  and  at 
vintage,  that  is,  as  a  propitiatory  and  as  a 
thank  offering.  Such  a  cake  is  taken  to  the 
church,  where  a  portion  of  it  is  crumbled  over 
the  altar  and  the  rest  is  eaten,  while,  at  the 
same  time,  every-one  present  expresses  a  wish. 
Thus  on  Zante  the  peasants  bring  such  a  cake, 
there  called  “sperna”  or  vesper  offerings,  to  the 
church  in  a  basket  at  the  celebration  of  the 

[  131 1 


GREEK  RELIGION 


“Holy  Transfiguration  of  Christ”  on  August 
6,  and  at  the  “Assumption  of  the  Virgin”  on 
August  15.  It  is  placed  in  the  center  of  the 
church  on  a  stand  with  a  burning  candle 
nearby.  During  mass  the  priest  blesses  it  and 
strews  the  chancel  with  a  portion  of  it  broken 
into  crumbs,  and  distributes  the  rest  among 
the  people,  who  eat  it  and  makes  a  wish.  This 
ceremony,  as  we  have  remarked  in  the  preced¬ 
ing  chapter,  recalls  the  “first-fruit”  offerings  at 

/ 

certain  old  Athenian  festivals. 

Schmidt  also  recounts  a  domestic  ceremony 
on  the  Ionian  islands  which  takes  place  on 
Christmas  day.  A  large  ring-shaped  cake,  still 
known  by  its  ancient  name  kolloura ,  is  made 
of  wheat,  raisins,  and  almonds.  A  coin  is 
baked  in  it,  which  belongs  to  the  one  who 
draws  the  portion  of  the  cake  which  contains 
it,  and  hence  he  is  regarded  as  lucky.  Before 
the  cake  is  divided  and  eaten,  the  father  of  the 
family  fills  a  glass  vessel  with  equal  parts  of 
wine  and  olive  oil,  and  then,  accompanied  by 
wife  and  children,  he  carries  the  cake  to  the 
hearth,  where  he  pours  the  liquid  three  times 
through  its  center  into  the  fire  in  the  form  of 
the  cross,  while  the  family  at  the  same  time 

[  !32  ] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


sings  a  song  beginning  with  the  words:  “Thy 
birth,  O  Christ,  the  God.”  Finally  the  cake 
is  placed  upon  the  table  and  divided,  and 
everyone  makes  a  wish  as  he  eats  his  share. 
Such  a  hearth  ceremony  goes  back  to  the  old 
domestic  custom  of  making  offerings  to  Hestia. 
As  the  Greek  Hestia,  whose  symbol  was  the 
hearth-fire,  the  religious  center  of  the  family, 
was  never  so  important  as  her  Roman  counter¬ 
part  Vesta,  we  conclude  that  the  present*  cere¬ 
mony  is  largely  due  to  Roman  influence. 

Schmidt  also  tells  of  a  ceremony  which  takes 
place  in  Arachova  on  the  evening  before  the 
festival  of  the  “Presentation  of  the  Virgin”  on 
November  21.  A  porridge,  called  pansper¬ 
mia,  made  of  wheat,  beans,  and  lentils,  is  eaten 
by  the  family  for  the  purpose  of  asking  the 
Virgin  for  a  favorable  harvest  the  following 
year.  This  ceremony  also  appears  to  be  a  sur¬ 
vival  of  the  offerings  of  the  first-fruits,  which 
were  originally  made  to  Demeter  or  to  some 
agrarian  goddess,  and  which  now  have  been 
transferred  to  the  Virgin. 

Thus  we  see  that  many  of  the  rites  observed 
by  the  Eastern  Church  and  its  votaries  are  in 
their  origin  pagan  rather  than  Christian.  An- 

[  133 1 


GREEK  RELIGION 


cient  methods  of  divination  still  survive,  similar 
objects  of  sacrifice  and  offering  are  surren¬ 
dered  in  the  ancient  spirit,  though  incorporated 
in  the  body  of  the  new  religion. 


1 134] 


V.  DEMONOLOGY:  NEREIDS, 
GENII,  GIANTS,  AND  CALLI- 
CANTZARI 


ALONG  with  the  survivals  already  dis¬ 
cussed  as  having  come  into  Eastern 
Christianity  from  Greek  sources,  we 
also  find  an  astonishing  body  of  superstitions 
about  various  supernatural  powers.  Most  of 
these  have  their  origin,  of  course,  in  prehistoric 
animism,  the  substratum  of  Greek  as  of  all 
early  religions.  Curiously,  these  beliefs  never 
disappeared  from  Greek  religion  even  after  it 
had  developed  into  its  highest  forms  and  many 
of  them,  slightly  changed,  live  on  among  the 
Greeks  of  to-day. 

These  various  supernatural  powers  surviv¬ 
ing  from  paganism  are  now  known  generally  as 
daemons,  although  other  names  are  also  given 
to  them.  Thus,  a  common  appellation  of  these 
spirits  is  ta  ’xotika,  “the  outside  ones,”  i  e., 
the  non-Christian  powers,  a  term  evidently 
coined  by  the  early  Christians.  A  more  liter¬ 
ary  form  of  the  same  idea  is  found  in  the  New 

[  135 1 


GREEK  RELIGION 

Testament,  hoi  exothen  or  hoi  exo,  which  refers 
either  to  non-Christian  powers  or  to  non-Chris¬ 
tians.  A  similar  idea  is  expressed  by  the  term 
ta  pagana,  “the  pagan  powers/’  a  term  not 
used,  however,  on  the  .ZEgean  islands  nor  in  the 
Peloponnesus.  Other  common,  but  easily  un¬ 
derstood,  names  are  ta  ’ xaphnika ,  “the 
swift  comers,”  ta  angelica,  “the  angelic 
ones,”  ta  eidolikd  and  ta  phantasmata , 
“ghosts.”  The  name  ta  tsinia,  “the  false 
ones,”  occurs  in  Epirus.  Such  spirits  are  also 
often  called  euphemistically  by  other  names, 
especially  at  night;  thus,  we  hear  of  ta  ’pizela, 
“the  enviable  ones,”  on  Tenos,  hoi  kalotychoi, 
“the  fortunate  ones,”  in  Epirus,  and  “friends” 
or  “brothers”  in  the  region  of  Mount  Par¬ 
nassus. 

It  is  still  believed  that  these  spirits  are  prone 
to  visit  certain  localities,  especially  crossways, 
springs,  caves,  cemeteries,  the  vicinity  of  old 
mills  and  lonely  trees,  in  general,  places  not 
frequently  by  men.  In  antiquity  crossroads 
were  places  where  frequently  kings  were  buried 
and  criminals  executed,  probably  because  rites 
and  sacrifices  were  there  made  to  the  gods  of 
the  lower  world.  The  Romans  believed  that 
Hecate  and  her  dogs  frequented  such  places, 

[  136] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 

called  trivia  and  compita,  and  they  dedicated 
temples  there  to  Diana,  the  Trivia  dea.  The 
compita  were  consecrated  to  the  Lares  compi- 
tales,  the  “spirits  of  the  cross-roads,”  and  in 
Italy  were  marked  by  shrines,  where  festivals 
called  uCompitaliaf>  were  celebrated. 

Such  spirits  are  also  believed  nowadays  to 
appear  at  certain  times,  notably  at  midnight 
and  midday.  Since  moonlit  nights  are  favor¬ 
able  to  optical  illusions,  spirits  are  best  seen 
at  such  times.  One  must  not  sing,  whistle  nor 
pipe  at  midnight  as  the  spirits  in  this  way  are 
most  easily  assembled.  However,  they  must 
all  disappear  at  the  third  cock-crow.  Noonday 
in  Italy  and  Greece  is  also  a  favorable  time  for 
seeing  spirits,  since  they  assemble  at  that  time 
while  people  stay  indoors  because  of  the  heat 
and  brilliancy  of  the  sun,  incidentally  thus 
avoiding  the  malevolence  of  the  daemons,  in¬ 
flicted  through  sunstrokes,  fevers,  etc.  Many 
modern  peoples  share  with  the  Greeks  and 
Italians  this  mystic  awe  of  noonday.  In  late 
antiquity  noon  was  regarded  as  the  hour  when 
the  gods  were  pleased  to  visit  their  temples 
and  rest,  the  time  when  men  were  away.  Ac¬ 
cording  to  Porphyry,  at  noonday  the  curtains 
were  drawn  in  Greek  temples  and  a  sign  placed 

[  137  ] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


over  the  door  warning  the  people  not  to  enter, 
since  the  gods  were  on  a  journey.  Woe  be¬ 
tide  the  man  who  dared  to  disturb  them! 
Lucian  says  that  at  midday  (and  also  at  mid¬ 
night)  priests  did  not  enter  the  holy  grove  of 
the  Gauls  near  Marseilles,  because  they  were 
fearful  lest  the  gods  might  be  there.  Apollonius 
Rhodius  has  Jason  behold  the  Libyan  nymphs 
at  noonday.  Callimachus  says  that  the  youth¬ 
ful  hunter  Tiresias  was  surprised  at  noontide 
by  Pallas  as  she  bathed  in  the  fountain  of 
Hippocrene.  Similarly  Ovid  has  Actaeon  meet 
his  doom  when  he  sees  Artemis  and  her  maidens 
bathing  at  noontide.  Theocritus’  goatherd  re¬ 
fuses  to  pipe  at  this  hour  because  of  dread  of 
Pan,  saying  “I  wot  not  high  noon’s  his  time  for 
taking  rest  after  the  swink  o’  the  chase.”  30 
Ovid  has  a  shepherd  pray  to  Pales  that  he  meet 
not  “the  Dryads,  nor  Dian  face  to  face,  nor 
Taurus  when  at  noon  he  walks  abroad.”31 
Schmidt  long  ago  pointed  out  that  this  ancient 
superstition  had  influenced  the  Septuagint 
translators  in  rendering  the  words  which  ap¬ 
pear  in  our  version  of  the  91st  Psalm  as  “the 
destruction  that  wasteth  at  noonday,”  so  as 
to  read,  “destruction  and  noontide  daemon,” 
thus  referring  to  Pan. 

[  138] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


In  Greece  to-day  it  is  dangerous  to  loiter  at 
noon  around  springs  and  fountains,  or  to  lie 
under  the  shade  of  certain  trees,  such  as  the 
plane,  poplar,  fig,  nut,  or  locust.  In  Crete  one 
must  not  stand  in  the  doorway  at  noon;  if  one 
does  so,  and  sings  or  whistles,  he  is  sure  to  lose 
his  voice.  At  Arachova  the  flute  must  not  be 
heard  at  midday,  especially  in  summer.  On 
Zante  noon  is  the  “heavy  hour.”  On  the  top  of 
Hymettus  is  a  level  space  avoided  by  the  shep¬ 
herds  at  noon,  since  the  Nereids  are  accus¬ 
tomed  to  dance  there  at  that  time.  Leo  Al- 
latius  alludes  to  the  fear  of  the  “daemon  meri- 
dianus”  on  Chios  in  his  day,  the  early  seven¬ 
teenth  century.  The  Nereids  on  Zante  have 
their  dinner  at  midnight  and  must  not  be  dis¬ 
turbed. 

Certain  seasons  are  chosen  in  preference  to 
others  by  these  supernatural  beings  for  their 
appearance.  On  Zante  they  like  to  come  on  St. 
John’s  day;  in  Epirus  they  come  in  May,  and 
elsewhere  at  the  equinoxes  and  especially  in  the 
spring.  During  the  twelve  days’  festival  be¬ 
tween  Christmas  and  New  Year’s  the  spirits 
known  as  the  Callicantzari  are  especially  ac¬ 
tive. 

The  penalty  meted  out  to  those  who  disturb 

r  139] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


the  repose  of  a  daemon  is  called  “the  sudden.” 
Thus  the  phrase  is  often  heard  in  Greece  “the 
sudden  sickness  has  found  him,”  and  reminds 
us  of  Plato’s  “sudden  hour.” 

In  the  present  chapter  we  shall  discuss  some 
of  the  less  malevolent  types  of  these  daemons, 
and  shall  begin  with  the  Nereids,  the  most  fa¬ 
miliar  and  widespread  of  them  all.  Under 
this  name  are  no  longer  understood  the  beauti¬ 
ful  sea-nymphs  with  mermaid  bodies  who  used 
to  dwell  in  a  resplendent  cave  in  the  depths  of 
the  sea  with  their  father  Nereus,  “the  old  man 
of  the  sea.”  For  Nereus,  prophetic  and  pro¬ 
pitious  to  sailors,  no  longer  exists,  nor  any  of 
his  fifty  daughters,  not  even  Amphitrite,  the 
wife  of  Poseidon,  who  was  the  “Lord  of  the 
Ocean,”  for  she  has  been  replaced  by  the  Lamia 
of  the  Sea.  Now  the  name  Nereid  has  become 
generalized  and  includes  all  that  has  survived 
of  the  various  nymphs, — whether  those  benevo¬ 
lent  spirits  who  used  to  dwell  on  hill-tops 
(Oreads),  in  groves  and  trees  (Dryads),  in 
fresh  water  springs  and  fountains  (Naiads), 
or  in  Ocean  stream  (Oceanids  and  Nereids). 
But  all  are  nowadays  indiscriminately  called 
Nereids,  and  the  old  word  “nymph”  has  com¬ 
pletely  disappeared  in  the  mythological  sense, 

[  ho  ] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


and  now  is  used  only  of  a  bride.  Just  as  in 
the  Homeric  Hymn  to  Aphrodite  lofty  pines 
and  oaks  were  the  homes  of  the  “deep-breasted 
mountain  nymphs/’  and  “men  hew  them  not 
with  the  axe/’  so  to-day  no  peasant  will  know¬ 
ingly  cut  down  a  tree  supposed  to  be  haunted 
by  a  Nereid;  if  compelled  to  do  so,  he  will  take 
all  needful  precautions,  such  as  praying  to  the 
Panaghia  and  making  the  sign  of  the  cross,  or 
lying  prone  on  the  ground  in  order  not  to  see 
the  spirit  as  it  emerges.  Otherwise  he  may  be 
smitten  dumb. 

The  Nereids  now,  like  the  ancient  Naiads, 
protect  many  a  mineral  spring  whose  water  is 
believed  to  be  efficacious  against  disease.  Such 
a  spring  may  be  roofed  over  like  the  one  on 
Ithaca,  described  in  the  Odyssey  as  “a  well- 
wrought  flowing  fountain,”  over  which  an  altar 
was  placed  in  honor  of  the  nymphs,  where  the 
passer-by  might  make  an  offering.  Pausanias 
describes  a  cavern  near  the  river  Anigrus  in 
the  western  Peloponnesus  sacred  to  the  Anigri- 
dian  Nymphs,  whose  “stinking”  water  was  fatal 
to  fishes  and  could  cure  lepers  if  they  per¬ 
formed  certain  rites  and  swam  in  it.  In  Mace¬ 
donia  near  the  village  of  Cotzanes  there  is  a 
spring  in  a  grotto  whose  waters  are  believed  to 

[141] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


issue  from  the  breasts  of  the  Nereids  and  to 
cure  all  diseases.  You  enter  with  a  lamp  and 
pitcher  and  fill  both  with  water  and  leave  bits 
of  clothing  behind.  You  must  not  look  back 
as  you  return,  else  the  water  will  not  avail. 
The  old  Corycian  cave  above  Delphi,  now 
known  as  the  Sarantavli  or  “Forty  Chambers,” 
which  was  formerly  sacred  to  Pan  and  the 
Nymphs,  is  still  haunted  by  the  Nereids.  The 
modern  Nereids  may  be,  after  all,  primarily 
the  representatives  of  the  old  Naiads,  and  the 
modern  word  for  water  {nerd)  may,  perhaps, 
still  echo  their  ancient  frolic.  They  now  tum¬ 
ble  and  gamble  in  mill-streams  and  mountain 
torrents,  just  as  Nereus’  daughters  of  old 
sported  in  the  waves  of  the  sea. 

There  is  one  fundamental  difference  between 
the  ancient  Nymphs  and  the  present-day 
Nereids.  Whereas  the  former  were  benevo¬ 
lent  guardians  of  the  spots  which  they  haunted, 
the  Nereids  are  generally  regarded  as  male¬ 
volent  and  the  peasants  scrupulously  avoid 
them.  In  late  antiquity,  to  be  sure,  the 
Nymphs  inspired  awe  in  the  peasants,  as  we 
learn  from  Theocritus,  who  called  them  “the 
dread  goddesses  of  the  country-folk.”  To  pro¬ 
pitiate  them  now  they  are  frequently  called  by 

1 142  ] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


euphemistic  names,  such  as  “the  beautiful 
ladies,”  or,  as  on  Parnassus,  “our  maidens.” 
On  Tenos  and  Myconus  they  are  the  “coast- 
dwellers,”  perhaps  the  nearest  approach  to  the 
ancient  daughters  of  Nereus.  This  idea  of 
complimenting  powers  able  to  work  harm  to 
men  is  as  rife  to-day  as  it  was  in  antiquity, 
when  the  Furies  were  called  the  Eumenides , 
“the  kindly  spirits.” 

The  Nereids,  like  their  prototypes,  generally 
frequent  lonely  places,  especially  old  mills, 
grottoes,  and  the  dry  beds  of  streams  in  sum¬ 
mer.  Many  spots  are  now  pointed  out  as  their 
haunts.  Thus  a  plateau  on  Parnassus  is  called 
the  “Nereid  Pits,”  and  a  spring  on  the  same 
mountain  is  the  “Nereid  Spring.”  An  entire 
mountain  on  Corfu  is  called  the  “Nereid 
Castle,”  while  a  cave  containing  a  spring  on 
Crete  is  known  as  the  “Nereid  Cave.”  We 
even  hear  of  a  village  in  Phthiotis  named 
“Nereid.”  Certain  cult  spots  once  sacred  to 
the  Nymphs  are  now  haunted  by  Nereids,  as, 
e.  g.,  a  small  cave  on  the  Hill  of  the  Muses 
in  Athens,  and  a  rocky  gorge  in  the  bed  of  the 
Ismenus  in  Boeotia. 

Like  the  fairies  of  Northern  legend  the 
Nereids  are  famed  for  their  beauty  and  lovely 

[  143 1 


GREEK  RELIGION 


voices.  They  are  imagined  to  be  tall  and  slim 
and  to  have  milk-white  complexions  and  golden 
hair.  They  still  are  clothed  in  white  and  are 
adorned  with  garlands  of  flowers.  Long  veils 
are  bound  over  their  heads  and  shoulders,  like 
those  worn  by  Greek  peasant  women.  Some¬ 
times,  as  at  Araohova,  they  carry  the  veil  flut¬ 
tering  in  the  hand,  just  as  we  see  them  repre¬ 
sented  in  ancient  art,  as  in  the  Nereid  Monu¬ 
ment  of  Xanthus.  Their  preternatural  beauty 
has  given  rise  to  many  proverbial  expressions. 
For  a  woman  to  be  compared  with  a  Nereid  is 
a  great  compliment.  Such  phrases  as,  “She  is 
as  beautiful  as  a  Nereid,”  “She  has  a  Nereid’s 
hair  and  eyes,”  “She  sings  and  dances  like  a 
Nereid,”  are  often  heard.  Fauriel  has  re¬ 
marked  that  sometimes  the  Nereids  have  ani¬ 
mal  characteristics.  Thus,  in  Maina  they  have 
goat-legs,  like  Pan,  and  dance  on  Mount  Tay- 
getus.  If  any  one  approaches  them  there,  he 
is  at  first  caressed  and  then  dashed  to  pieces 
down  the  rocks.  This  is  a  reminiscence  of  the 
old  Sirens,  who  in  legend  still  sing  in  the  neigh¬ 
borhood  of  Cape  Malea  and  attract  sailors 
from  passing  ships.  On  Zante  the  Nereids 
have  the  feet  of  an  ass,  and,  in  some  places, 
even  fish-tails  like  the  mermaid  Nereids  of  old. 

[  144 1 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


They  pass  swiftly  through  the  air  and  can 
easily  disappear,  sometimes  becoming  small 
enough  to  get  through  cracks  and  key-holes. 
In  fact  they  can  transform  themselves  into  as 
many  shapes  as  did  Thetis  in  her  mythical 
struggle  with  Peleus.  Just  as  Chiron  advised 
Peleus  not  to  let  go  his  prize  until  Thetis  had 
resumed  her  original  shape,  so  the  same  tactics 
must  be  used  now  to  catch  a  Nereid. 

As  the  old  Nymphs  enjoyed  dancing  and 
singing,  hunting  and  a  careless  life  generally, 
so  the  modern  Nereids  are  light-hearted  and 
given  to  song  and  dance.  In  a  folk-song  from 
Euboea  a  Nereid  is  said  to  have  danced  until 
she  died.  They  live  mostly  alone,  but  some¬ 
times  foregather  to  dance  in  some  moonlit 
glade — on  a  threshing-floor,  or,  it  may  be,  on 
the  bright  sands  of  some  lonely  island.  At 
times,  however,  they  can  be  serious,  since  they 
are  trained  in  spinning  and  weaving,  as  in  anti¬ 
quity.  Thus  Pindar  sang  of  the  “Nereids 
with  golden  distaffs,”  and  before  him  Homer 
mentions  a  weaving-room  in  the  Nymphs’ 
grotto  on  Ithaca  sacred  to  the  Naiads,  where 
they  wove  purple  garments.  Virgil  speaks  of 
the  Nymphs  as  spinning  Milesian  fleeces.  A 
creeping  plant  around  a  tree  is  now  called 

[  145] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


“Nereid  yarn/’  and  on  Zante  and  Cephalonia 
stones  with  holes  in  them  are  called  “Nereid 
spindles/’  and,  if  small  enough,  are  hung 
round  children’s  necks  to  protect  them  from 
the  Nereids.  On  Zante  they  are  believed  to 
be  industrious,  for  they  visit  houses  before 
morning  and  complete  the  weaving  left  unfin¬ 
ished  by  the  housewife. 

On  Zante  they  have  a  leader,  as  Artemis  led 
the  Nymphs  in  ancient  lore,  and  this  leader  is 
the  most  beautiful  of  all.  In  Elis  a  Lamia  is 
their  leader.  Often  they  are  represented  as 
married  to  devils,  and  hence  are  often  called 
“she-devils.”  On  Parnassus  their  husbands 
may  be  heard  by  the  peasants  playing  on  musi¬ 
cal  instruments  and  dancing  in  grottoes,  such 
as  the  Corycian  cave.  Frequently  they  gather 
around  a  piping  shepherd  and  begin  to  dance 
to  his  music.  They  are  long-lived,  but  not  im¬ 
mortal,  and  many  stories  tell  of  their  death  by 
lightning  or  at  the  hands  of  mortals.  Just  so  in 
the  Homeric  Hymn  to  Aphrodite ,  the  Nymphs 
are  midway  between  mortals  and  immortals, 
eating  heavenly  food  and  dancing  with  the 
gods,  but  still  fated  to  die.  The  Nereids  often 
fall  in  love  with  handsome  youths,  whom  they 
reward  with  prosperity.  If  such  a  favorite, 

[  146] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


however,  slights  his  Nereid  love,  he  is  sure  to 
meet  dire  misfortune, — blindness,  dumbness, 
insanity,  or  even  death.  Especially  is  loss  of 
voice  feared  by  him  who  accosts  them,  which 
recalls  the  similar  notion  regarding  fairies  held 
in  Shakespeare’s  day.  Thus  Falstaff  says: 
“he  that  speaks  to  them,  shall  die.”  On  the 
other  hand,  sometimes  men  fall  in  love  with 
them  and  ensnare  them  into  becoming  their 
wives.  Many  stories  are  told  of  such  mar¬ 
riages,  and  families  descended  from  Nereids  are 
pointed  out  here  and  there  in  Greece  and  are 
greatly  esteemed.  Thus  the  great  Revolution¬ 
ary  family  of  Maina,  Mavromichales,  claims 
Nereid  blood.  Kampouroglu  32  speaks  of  such 
a  family  in  the  Attic  village  of  Menidhi,  and 
Schmidt  talked  with  a  peasant  in  the  village 
of  Mariais  on  Zante  who  made  the  same  claim. 
At  Distomo,  at  the  foot  of  Mount  Cirphis  op¬ 
posite  Delphi,  there  are  two  families  who  are 
said  to  be  descended  from  a  Nereid  union,  and 
their  men  and  women  are  said  to  be  very 
beautiful.  Similarly,  in  antiquity  many  noble 
Athenian  families  traced  their  descent  from 
nymphs. 

If  a  mortal  can  steal  and  hide  a  Nereid’s  veil, 
she  loses  her  power  of  transformation  and  has 

[  147  ] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


to  follow  the  man  to  his  home.  Such  wives, 
however,  soon  lose  their  merry  ways  and  be¬ 
come  morose.  If  they  find  their  veils,  they  run 
away.  They  cannot  return  to  their  sisters,  but 
must  live  alone  thereafter  as  the  guardians  of 
springs  and  fountains.  Sometimes  it  is  the 
possession  of  a  ring  which  puts  a  Nereid  in  a 
mortal’s  power.  Schmidt  tells  a  story  to  the 
effect  that  two  hundred  years  before  his  visit 
to  Zante  a  man  from  Mariais  was  seized  by  the 
Nereids  and  made  to  dance  with  them.  He 
succeeded  in  getting  a  ring  from  one  of  them 
and  she  was  obliged  to  follow  him  home.  Two 
boys  and  a  girl  were  the  fruit  of  the  union. 
One  day  the  Nereid  found  the  hidden  ring  and 
ran  away  taking  with  her  one  boy  and  one-half 
of  her  daughter.  The  peasant  with  whom 
Schmidt  conversed,  as  claiming  Nereid  blood, 
was  descended  from  the  surviving  boy.  A  more 
famous  story  about  a  Nereid  marriage  comes 
from  Crete,  which  recalls  the  marriage  of 
Peleus  and  Thetis,  as  here  the  Nereid  trans¬ 
formed  herself  successively  into  a  dog,  a  snake, 
a  camel,  and  fire,  but  to  no  avail. 

The  Nereids  punish  those  who  watch  their 
dances  and  who  try  to  speak  to  them.  Such 
people  generally  become  dumb  or  waste  away. 

[  148  ] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


Children  so  affected  are  “struck  by  the 
Nereids”  and  are  called  nympholeptais. 
Nympholepsy,  the  condition  of  being  “pos¬ 
sessed  by  the  Nymphs,”  was  the  name  in  anti¬ 
quity  for  all  sorts  of  mental  disturbances, — 
poetic  rapture,  prophetic  frenzy,  and  insanity. 
Whoever  was  possessed,  suffered  depression 
and  strange  fits  of  frenzy  and  desired  solitude. 
Nowadays  if  a  man  be  caught  beside  a  spring 
or  under  a  tree  where  a  Nereid  is  resting,  he 
may  become  a  nympholeptos.  Bent  visited  a 
cave  on  Siphnus  over  which  were  inscribed  the 
words  “Sanctuary  of  the  Nymphs,”  and  he  re¬ 
cords  that  travelers  who  crossed  a  stream 
nearby  at  midday  or  midnight  might  become 
possessed  by  the  Nereids.  To  be  cured  they 
had  to  place  at  a  neighboring  crossroads  or 
hang  on  the  wall  of  the  cave  a  piece  of  bread 
wrapped  in  a  napkin  along  with  an  offering  of 
honey,  milk,  and  eggs.  A  tendency  to  melan¬ 
choly  and  solitude  is  also  nowadays  ascribed 
to  the  influence  of  the  Nereids.  Ross 33  re¬ 
counts  a  story  from  Chalandri  in  Attica  which 
he  heard  in  1833.  The  wife  of  the  village 
priest  was  in  great  sorrow,  because  the  Nereids 
had  decoyed  away  her  twelve-year  old  daugh¬ 
ter,  who  frequently  left  her  home  and  visited 

[  149] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


the  foothills  of  the  neighboring  Mount  Bri- 
lessus,  where  for  many  days  at  a  time  she  wan¬ 
dered  alone  in  the  early  morning  or  late  at 
night.  The  priest  prayed  in  vain  to  the  Virgin, 
as  finally  the  child  died.  Neighbors  claimed  to 
have  seen  her  dancing  with  the  Nereids  only 
two  days  before  her  death. 

The  Nereids  are  especially  jealous  of  married 
women  and  mothers.  Such  women  wear  amu¬ 
lets  and  place  garlic  over  their  house-doors  for 
protection.  Sometimes  a  cross  is  painted  on 
the  lintel,  and  if  there  be  a  knock  on  the  door 
at  night,  it  is  not  answered.  As  the  Nereids 
have  a  propensity  to  carry  off  new-born  babes, 
or  to  leave  changelings  in  their  place,  great 
precautions  are  taken  at  births.  On  Rhodes 
for  forty  days  after  a  birth  the  house-door  is 
bolted  at  night.  In  the  country  parts  of  Greece 
children  are  carried  by  their  mothers  with  them 
into  the  fields  for  protection.  Sometimes  a 
stolen  child  will  be  returned  more  beautiful. 
The  Nereids  often  draw  children  down  into 
springs,  just  as  the  old  Naiads  entwined  their 
arms  about  the  ill-fated  Hylas  as  he  went  to 
fetch  water  and  drew  him  down. 

Injuries  inflicted  by  the  Nereids  are  not 
permanent,  but  may  be  cured  by  prayer,  by 

[  iso] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


incantations,  and  by  offerings  of  milk,  honey, 
and  cakes  placed  in  spots  haunted  by  them.  A 
Greek  writer34  tells  of  honey  cakes  being 
placed  in  a  cave  at  Athens  in  1818  by  a  man 
and  a  woman,  who  then  ran  away  without  look¬ 
ing  back.  Schmidt  says  that  on  Zante  candy 
and  sweetmeats  were  offered  in  his  day  at  cross¬ 
roads.  Theocritus  has  Lacon  tell  Comatas 
that  he  will  dedicate  a  great  bowl  of  milk  to 
the  nymphs.  On  Corfu,  milk  and  honey  are 
offered  to  avert  whirlwinds,  which  are  there 
ascribed  to  the  agency  of  the  Nereids.  If  one 
fails  to  crouch  during  such  a  storm,  especially 
during  the  passing  of  the  anemostrovilos,  he 
will  be  lifted  off  his  feet  by  the  Nereids.  On 
Zante  at  such  times  the  peasants  believe  that 
the  Nereids  are  dancing.  Thus,  the  modern 
Nereids  are  frequently  confused  with  the  an¬ 
cient  storm-spirits,  the  Harpies,  who  in  the 
Odyssey  carry  off  Pandareus’  daughters  in  a 
storm,  and  by  whom  Penelope  prayed  that  she 
might  be  borne  away  in  order  to  avoid  her 
hard  plight. 

The  modern  Greeks  believe  in  local  protect¬ 
ing  spirits  or  guardians  everywhere.  Just  as 
every  spot  in  antiquity — every  grove,  fountain, 
garden,  gorge,  etc. — had  its  tutelary  genius , 

[I5i] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


its  nymph,  Pan,  or  Priapus,  so  now  every  such 
place  has  its  stoicheion,  which  is  a  word  of  an¬ 
cient  lineage.  Plato  called  the  four  primary 
substances  of  the  earlier  philosophers — fire, 
water,  earth,  and  air — stoicheia.  The  Neo- 
Platonists  transferred  the  term  from  these 
physical  elements  to  the  spirits  which  were  be¬ 
lieved  to  animate  them.  St.  Paul  refers  to 
the  “elements  of  the  world”;  in  one  passage 
he  asks:  “how  turn  ye  again  to  the  weak  and 
beggarly  elements,  whereunto  ye  desire  again 
to  be  in  bondage?”85  Here  the  word  “ele¬ 
ments”  (in  the  Revised  Version,  “rudiments”) 
should  be  translated  “spirits,”  in  order  to  give 
the  personal  meaning  of  the  Greek.  The  ordi¬ 
nary  man  identified  these  spirits,  in  general, 
with  the  local  genii  which  were  supposed  to 
haunt  all  parts  of  the  visible  world,  and  this 
popularization  of  the  term,  stoicheia,  has  been 
kept  up  by  the  Eastern  Church.  In  Greece 
the  Nereids,  the  Lamias,  and  many  other  super¬ 
natural  beings  are,  in  a  sense,  such  genii.  But 
we  shall  follow  the  five-fold  division  of  these 
spirits  made  by  Lawson,  according  to  their 
place  of  dwelling:  the  genii  of  buildings,  who 
haunt  houses,  churches,  bridges,  etc.;  those  of 
water,  who  inhabit  springs  and  rivers;  terres- 

[  152 1 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 

trial  spirits,  who  inhabit  mountains  and  caves; 
the  spirits  of  the  air;  and,  lastly,  the  guardian 
angels,  good  and  bad,  of  men.  The  latter  class 
we  shall  leave  for  our  last  chapter,  and  consider 
the  other  four  in  the  present  connection. 

The  most  frequent  of  all  such  genii  are  the 
house-spirits,  which  are  recognized  everywhere 
in  Greece,  even  among  the  Albanians  and 
Vlachs.  Thus  it  is  a  universal  belief  that  a 
genius  loci  lives  under  every  house  in  the  form 
of  a  dog,  a  cat,  a  pig,  or,  most  commonly,  a 
snake.  Without  such  a  guardian  the  house 
cannot  stand.  If  a  house  is  destroyed,  the 
snake  will  seek  another.  Schmidt  recounts  the 
story  of  a  wealthy  Greek  peasant  who  built  a 
fine  house.  One  day  he  found  one  of  his  chil¬ 
dren  in  the  garden  playing  with  a  snake,  which 
was  licking  the  child’s  hand  and  curling  around 
its  feet.  Horror-struck  he  frightened  the  snake 
away.  Next  day  it  was  found  nearly  dead 
from  fright  and  was  killed  and  thrown  away. 
Immediately  the  house  fell  in.  On  Zante 
bread-crumbs  are  sprinkled  over  a  crevice 
through  which  the  snake  is  supposed  to  enter 
the  house.  When  families  assemble,  especially 
during  the  Christmas  festival,  the  house-snake 
is  not  forgotten.  On  New  Year’s  eve  it  has  its 

[  iS3  ] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


share  of  St.  Basil’s  cake,  an  offering  which 
plays  a  great  role  in  Macedonia.  The  cake  is 
set  on  the  center  of  the  table  and  incense  is 
shaken  over  it;  then  it  is  cut  up  by  the  parents, 
one  part  being  set  apart  for  St.  Basil,  another 
for  the  house-spirit,  a  third  for  the  domestic 
animals,  a  fourth  for  the  furniture,  and  the  rest 
for  the  members  of  the  family.  After  supper 
the  table  is  placed  in  the  corner  for  St.  Basil, 
in  order  that  he  may  share  in  the  cake.  On 
Cyprus,  the  first  plate  at  dinner,  a  cup  of  wine, 
and  a  purse  of  money  are  set  upon  the  table 
for  the  house-spirit.  On  Chios,  on  New  Year’s 
day,  a  mixture  of  beans,  currants,  and  pome¬ 
granate  seeds  is  made;  one  of  the  household 
must  sleep  elsewhere  and  return  next  day, 
when  he  sprinkles  the  concoction  over  the  house 
and  its  inmates.  On  Samos  and  on  the  Ionian 
Islands  water  vessels  are  filled  at  night  and 
left  standing  for  the  house-spirit.  In  anti¬ 
quity  great  reverence  was  paid  to  such  spirits. 
Thus  Theophrastus  has  the  superstitious  man 
erect  a  shrine,  if  he  sees  a  snake  in  the  house. 
One  Xenocrates  wrote  a  book  on  domestic  divi¬ 
nation,  in  which  he  devoted  a  division  to  the 
house-snake.  The  snake  was  always  the  em- 

[  154] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


blem  of  the  chthonian  deities,  and  to-day  the 
belief  in  the  house-snake  is  descended  from 
such  worship. 

The  house-spirit  is  propitiated  by  a  regular 
ceremony,  which  has  its  origin  in  human  sacri¬ 
fice.  When  ground  is  cleared  for  a  new  struc¬ 
ture,  a  “foundation  sacrifice”  takes  place. 
When  the  owner’s  family  and  workmen  are 
gathered  together,  a  priest  takes  holy  water  and 
blesses  the  spot.  Then  an  animal,  a  fowl, 
lamb,  or  goat,  is  slain  and  its  blood  sprinkled 
over  the  foundation  stone  and  its  body 
buried  beneath,  on  the  theory  that  the  blood 
gives  stability  to  the  foundation.  Sometimes 
it  is  the  shadow  of  an  animal  that  is  so 
utilized.  Miss  Hamilton  records  that  on 
Samos  a  bird  or  a  lamb  is  brought  to  the 
site  of  the  foundation  stone  and  so  placed 
that  its  shadow  may  fall  upon  it.  Over  this 
shadow  the  first  stone  is  then  laid.  Later  the 
animal  is  killed  and  buried  elsewhere.  She 
also  recounts  how  on  Lesbos  the  natives  avail 
themselves  of  the  shadow  of  a  passer-by  who 
is  entrapped  with  hypocritical  friendliness,  or 
the  builder  may  even  cast  a  stone  at  it.  Within 
the  year  the  passer-by  will  die  and  become  the 

[  155] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


genius  of  the  building.  Sometimes  the  builder 
will  secretly  measure  a  man’s  shadow  and  bury 
the  measure  beneath  the  foundations,  and  then 
also  the  man  will  die  within  the  year.  This 
reflects  the  ancient  Greek  idea  that  a  man’s 
shadow  represented  his  soul  and  that  its  loss 
meant  death.  Thus  Pausanias  mentions  a  pre¬ 
cinct  of  Zeus  on  Mount  Lycaeus  into  which  no 
creature,  whether  man  or  beast,  could  enter 
with  safety,  for  it  would  lose  its  shadow  and 
die  within  the  year.  Theopompus  also  states 
that  people  who  entered  the  precinct  lost  their 
shadow,  and  Plutarch  adds  that  if  they  did 
so  intentionally  they  were  stoned  to  death,  but 
if  unintentionally  they  were  merely  sent  away 
to  the  village  of  Eleutherae.  So  in  Greece  to¬ 
day  the  shadow  is  believed  to  be  a  vital  part  of 
a  man  and  its  loss  fatal.  The  “foundation  sac¬ 
rifice,”  then,  is  really  a  survival  of  human  sac¬ 
rifice.  The  slain  animal,  the  shadow,  or  even 
the  burial  of  a  portion  of  a  man’s  clothing 
are  merely  more  civilized  substitutes  for  human 
sacrifice.  On  Zante,  Schmidt  found  the  belief 
still  current  that  it  is  best  to  ensure  the  strength 
of  a  fort  or  a  bridge  by  slaying  and  burying  a 
man  upon  the  spot.  A  monk  told  him  that  it 
was  merely  the  fear  of  the  law  which  kept  the 

[  156] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


people  from  carrying  out  the  idea.  Such  a 
man,  however,  must  not  be  a  Christian,  but  a 
Jew  or  a  Moslem. 

Human  sacrifice  is  proved  by  many  legends 
about  Eastern  bridges,  showing  that  such  an 
act  was  considered  essential  to  the  safety  of 
the  structure.  The  best  known  legend  of  the 
kind  is  connected  with  the  lofty  single-arched 
bridge  of  Arta  near  the  Ambracian  Gulf,  where 
the  genius  of  the  bridge,  i.  e.,  of  the  river  be¬ 
low,  exacted  the  usual  cruel  toll,  similar  to  that 
exacted  by  the  ancient  river-gods.  When  the 
forty-five  master-builders  and  the  sixty  labor¬ 
ers  had  toiled  in  vain  for  three  years  to  hang 
the  arch — for  it  fell  each  night — the  master- 
mason  had  a  dream  in  which  he  was  told : 

“If  you  slay  not  a  human  life,  the  walls  can  ne’er 
he  founded; 

No  nobleman  it  he,  nor  serf nor  any  ’ neatli  the 
heavens; 

But  e’en  the  master-mason’s  wife,  his  zvife  must 
be  the  victim.”  36 

So  he  hypocritically  summons  his  beautiful 
wife  to  come  dressed  in  festal  array,  and  tells 
her  that  his  wedding-ring  has  fallen  beside  the 
arch,  and  that  she  alone  can  recover  it.  She  de- 

1 157] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


scends  into  the  excavation  and  is  immediately 
buried  by  the  workmen  in  stone  and  mortar. 
Then  the  arch  is  spanned. 

Water  genii  still  haunt  fountains  and  rivers. 
They  are  sometimes  imagined  as  having  the 
forms  of  dragons  or  bulls,  like  the  old  river- 
gods,  but  more  frequently  they  appear  as  the 
Black  Giant,  a  monster  of  Oriental  origin,  fre¬ 
quently  called  an  “Arab.”  It  may  be  that  the 
Arab  slaves,  who  were  the  inmates  of  most 
households  in  Turkish  times,  were  suspected 
by  their  Christian  masters  of  being  in  league 
with  the  Devil,  and  hence  were  metamorphosed 
into  such  genii.  These  “Arabs”  have  the 
power  to  assume  any  shape  they  wish.  It  de¬ 
pends  upon  them  whether  the  water  of  a  well 
or  fountain  is  healthful  to  drink.  Schmidt 
found  a  spring  on  Myconus,  where  the  water 
had  to  be  greeted  three  times  before  it  was 
drunk,  in  order  to  appease  its  spirit.  At  the 
spring  of  St.  Symeon  near  Steiri  on  Parnassus 
a  cannibal  “Arab”  is  believed  to  guard  a  rich 
treasure.  Often  he  is  heard  in  the  village  as 
he  takes  his  delight  in  playing  with  his  gold 
pieces.  At  another  spring  on  Chios  a  monster 
named  Venias  dwells,  who  leaves  his  abode  at 
midnight  and  rides  on  a  wild  horse  through  the 

[  158] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


village  street  and  again  disappears  in  the  foun¬ 
tain.  Whoever  drinks  of  his  water  becomes 
foolish  or  insane.  Such  giants  frequently 
fight;  thus  two  of  them,  who  live  in  Kastri 
(Delphi)  and  Arachova  respectively,  villages 
twelve  miles  apart,  fight  at  a  spring  near  the 
latter  town.  If  the  Arachovite  wins,  the  Kas- 
triotes  die,  and  vice  versa.  Above,  on  the  top 
of  Parnassus,  such  giants  also  contend.  From 
such  battles  the  Arachovites  fancy  that  cold 
weather  and  snow-storms  come,  which  belief 
shows  a  confusion  between  these  genii  and  the 
old  gods  of  the  winds,  just  as  we  saw  that  at 
times  the  present  Nereids  are  confused  with 
the  old  Harpies.  Such  fountain  “Arabs”  are 
generally  harmless,  although  they  are  fond  of 
inveigling  beautiful  maidens  by  seductive 
promises  to  their  palaces  beneath  the  waters. 
In  Crete,  Rodd  found  that  such  spirits,  there 
known  as  “Saracens,”  were  called  on  by 
mothers  as  bogies  by  which  to  frighten  their 
naughty  children. 

The  terrestrial  genius,  who  inhabits  moun¬ 
tain  caves,  gorges,  clefts,  and  other  desolate 
spots,  is  generally  known  as  the  Dracus  or 
Dracondas,  and  is  one  of  the  commonest  of 
these  stoicheia.  Since  at  times  the  Dracus  is 

[  159] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


also  conceived  as  haunting  wells  and  springs, 
he  is  closely  related  to  the  Black  Giant  just 
discussed.  Unlike  the  latter,  however,  the 
Dracus  is  generally  malevolent.  He  often  ap¬ 
pears  as  a  big  snake  or  as  a  monster  having  the 
body  of  a  snake  and  the  head  of  a  man.  Von 
Hahn  tells  of  one  in  Maina  which  had  seven 
heads  and  the  power  of  form-shifting.  In 
many  legends  the  Dracus  guards  treasure,  just 
as  the  Colchian  dragon  guarded  the  Golden 
Fleece  from  the  Argonauts  and  the  guardian- 
dragon  watched  over  the  apples  in  the  Garden 
of  the  Hesperides.  If  a  man  dreams  of  buried 
treasure,  he  must  say  nothing  about  it,  but  go 
at  once  to  the  spot  indicated  and  sacrifice  a  dog, 
a  sheep,  or  a  goat,  in  order  to  appease  the 
dragon.  Then  only  can  he  dig  it  up.  But  if 
he  tells  any  one  his  dream,  or  forgets  to  sacri¬ 
fice,  he  will  find  that  the  treasure  has  been 
turned  to  ashes.  In  his  Oneiro  critic  a,  Artemi- 
dorus  says  that  a  dream  about  dragons  “signi¬ 
fies  riches  and  wealth,  since  the  dragon  dwells 
over  treasures.” 

In  many  folk-tales  the  Dracus  figures  as  a 
large  and  uncouth  human  monster,  like  the 
Giants  of  our  fairy-tales.  In  fact,  such  stories 
provide  the  usual  hero  of  Greek  fairy-tales. 

[  160] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


But  he  is  easily  outwitted  and  possesses  none 
of  the  subtlety  of  our  Devil  nor  of  the  clever 
Mohammedan  I  frit.  His  similarity  to  the  Teu¬ 
tonic  Giant  is  also  shown  by  the  fact  that  the 
Dracus  can  perform  great  feats  of  strength. 
As  we  hear  of  the  Giants’  Causeway  in  Ireland, 
we  hear  of  a  great  stone  known  as  the  “Dracus’ 
Weight,”  south  of  the  village  of  Negrita  in 
Macedonia;  nearby  is  a  mound  called  “Dracus’ 
Shovelful,”  and  a  rock  in  the  same  neighbor¬ 
hood  is  known  as  “Dracus’  Tomb.”  Near 
the  village  of  Liaccovicia  in  the  plain  of  Serres 
two  solitary  rocks  are  called  “Dracus’ 
Quoits.”  Many  caves  in  Greece  are  known  as 
the  “Dragon’s  Caves,”  for  we  find  them  on  the 
islands  of  Zante,  Cephalonia,  and  Astypalaea, 
and  on  Parnassus  and  elsewhere.  The  Dracus 
sometimes  has  a  spouse — Dracaena  or  Dracon- 
dissa,  who  is  as  big  and  foolish  as  her  husband. 
In  the  Eastern  Church,  saints  slay  such  drag¬ 
ons,  just  as  heroes  slew  them  in  antiquity.37 

Daemons  of  the  air  have  been  believed  in  by 
the  Greeks  from  the  time  of  Hesiod  to  the  pres¬ 
ent  day.  But  with  Hesiod  they  were  the 
benevolent  spirits  of  men  who  had  lived  in  the 
Golden  Age.  Now  they  are  no  longer  benefi¬ 
cent,  but  as  hostile  to  man  as  most  of  the  other 

[161] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


supernatural  spirits  by  whom  he  is  encom¬ 
passed.  As  a  whole,  this  class  of  daemons  is  too 
vague  in  the  popular  imagination  to  be  clearly 
defined,  so  we  shall  confine  our  attention 
briefly  to  only  one  division  of  such  air-spirits, 
a  species  which  has  an  acknowledged  province 
of  authority,  the  so-called  Telonia.  These  are 
spirits  which  hover  between  earth  and  heaven 
and  interfere  with  the  passage  of  the  soul  to 
heaven.  Between  them  and  the  angels  an  end¬ 
less  strife  is  supposed  to  be  waged,  the  telonia 
hindering,  the  angels  hastening  the  advent  of 
the  soul  before  God.  The  name,  which  is  a 
diminutive  of  the  word  telones,  a  “publican” 
or  “toll-gatherer,”  means  “toll-houses.”  The 
naive  Greek  idea  seems  to  be  that  the  soul  on 
its  way  upwards  is  embarrassed  by  aerial  cus¬ 
tom-houses,  just  as  the  body  was  embarrassed 
here  on  its  journey  through  life.  This  may  ex¬ 
plain — as  we  shall  note  in  the  final  chapter — 
the  custom  once  common  among  the  modern 
Greeks  of  placing  a  coin  in  the  mouth  of  the 
dead  man,  not  as  a  ferry-charge  for  Charus,  but 
as  a  toll  for  the  Telonia.  The  words  of  Jesus 
found  in  Luke 38  have  been  appealed  to  by 
Greek  commentators  as  referring  to  these  spir¬ 
its:  “Thou  fool,  this  night  thy  soul  shall  be  re- 

[  162] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


quired  of  thee.”  Here  the  Greek  reads,  “they 
require  thy  soul,”  where  the  vague  plural  has 
been  explained  as  referring  to  the  Telonia. 
Certain  illnesses  are  due  to  the  malignity  of 
these  spirits,  and  also  certain  night  phenomena, 
such  as  comets  and  meteors,  are  believed  to 
be  manifestations  of  them.  They  are  greatly 
dreaded  by  sailors,  to  whom  St.  Elmo’s  light, 
the  flame  which  flickers  around  the  masts  and 
yards  on  stormy  nights,  is  a  manifestation  of 
their  hostility.  Sailors  invoke  the  aid  of  the 
saints  against  them  by  firing  guns,  or  by  stick¬ 
ing  black-handled  knives  into  the  masts.  In 
antiquity  the  appearance  of  two  such  lights 
was,  on  the  contrary,  regarded  as  the  sign  of 
the  good  spirits,  Castor  and  Pollux,  whom 
Horace  apostrophized  as  the  “fratres  Helenae , 
lucida  sidera,”  and  who  were  believed  to  save 
storm-bound  sailors. 

Traditions,  which  go  back  to  the  Titans, 
Giants,  and  Cyclopes,  have  been  found  here 
and  there  in  Greece,  especially  on  the  Ionian 
Islands.  On  Zante  Schmidt  found  the  tradi¬ 
tion  of  giants  with  long  beards  and  one  eye  in 
their  foreheads  which  sparkled  like  fire,  recall¬ 
ing  Virgil’s  description  of  Cyclops’  “huge  eye, 
that  lay  deep-set  beneath  his  savage  brow, 

[  163] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


like  an  Argive  shield  or  the  lamp  of  Phoebus.” 
The  father  of  such  monsters  is  now  believed  to 
have  been  a  devil,  who,  mated  to  a  Lamia  or 
a  sorceress,  created  their  race.  They  dwell 
within  the  earth,  and  spend  their  time  lifting 
large  stones  and  building  them  into  fortresses. 
Their  wives  are  equally  large  and  ply  great 
distaffs.  In  a  former  war  against  a  certain 
king,  these  women  slew  thousands  of  the 
enemy  by  hurling  their  distaffs  at  them.  Such 
giants  cause  earthquakes,  showing  that  origi¬ 
nally  they  were  personifications  of  natural  dis¬ 
turbances  like  the  old  Giants  in  the  legend  of 
the  Gigantomachy .  Another  belief  on  Zante  is 
that  they  have  been  imprisoned  by  God  against 
their  will;  for  they  once  rebelled  against  his 
rule  and  were  vanquished  by  his  thunderbolts. 
This  is  surely  a  reminiscence  of  the  old  battle 
between  Zeus  and  the  Titans.  There  has  also 
been  found  a  reminiscence  of  the  legend  of 
Achilles  in  the  stories  about  these  present-day 
giants.  For  they  are  vulnerable  only  in  the 
ankle-bone,  since  their  mother  after  their  birth 
baptized  them  in  a  river,  leaving  only  the  foot- 
joint  unwetted.  There  are  also  reminders  of 
such  Cyclopes  outside  the  island  of  Zante. 
Thus  the  Arachovites  say  that  in  some  strange 

[  164] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


land  there  exists  a  race  of  godless  men  who 
have  only  one  eye  in  their  forehead.  This 
legend  recalls  Strabo’s  race  of  “one-eyed  Cy¬ 
clopes.”  In  fact  the  Arachovites  use  the  term 
as  one  of  reproach,  calling  any  savage-tem¬ 
pered  man  “one-eyed.”  Among  the  Acarna- 
nians,  the  Xeromerites  call  their  hated  neigh¬ 
bors,  the  Baltines,  a  savage  mountain  tribe, 
“one-eyed.”  A  sailor  story  from  the  isle  of 
Psaria,  recorded  by  Ross,39  recalls  the  story 
of  Odysseus  and  Polyphemus.  The  hero  of 
the  story  is  rescued  from  the  clutches  of  a  blind 
cannibal  dragon  in  a  way  which  is  somewhat 
similar  to  that  by  which  Odysseus  escapes  from 
the  cave  of  the  blinded  Cyclops.  He  hides  in 
the  skin  of  a  ram  which  he  has  slain,  and  on 
all  fours  creeps  by  the  watchful  dragon. 

During  the  twelve  days  between  Christmas 
and  Epiphany  supernatural  beings  are  be¬ 
lieved  to  be  especially  active.  Among  these  are 
the  Callicantzari,  who  are  among  the  best 
known  sprites  of  modern  Greek  superstition. 
Although  the  name  has  many  dialectical  varia¬ 
tions  and  the  forms  assumed  by  these  spirits 
vary  in  different  parts,  the  time  of  their  appear¬ 
ance  and  their  general  characterisics  are  uni¬ 
form.  While  Schmidt  argued  that  the  name 

1 165] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


was  of  Turkish  origin,  and  reached  the  Greeks 
by  way  of  the  Albanians,  later  students  of  folk¬ 
lore,  such  as  Lawson  and  Polites,  have  con¬ 
cluded  that  the  Turks  borrowed  it  from  the 
Greeks.  These  daemons  have  been  divided 
into  two  classes,  one,  the  larger  variety,  rang¬ 
ing  in  size  from  that  of  a  man  to  that  of  a  giant, 
the  other,  mere  hobgoblins  of  pigmy  dimen¬ 
sions.  Whereas  the  former  are  malicious  and 
even  deadly,  the  smaller  are  generally  harm¬ 
less,  haunting  the  cabins  of  the  peasants  and 
merely  annoying  their  inmates  by  frolicsome 
pranks.  The  latter  are  not  feared  by  the  peo¬ 
ple  and  may,  therefore,  be  merely  a  later  de¬ 
velopment  of  the  original  larger  type. 

The  larger  Callicantzari  are  usually  black 
and  have  hairy  bodies,  big  heads,  black  or  red 
faces,  bloodshot  eyes,  blood-red  tongues,  ears 
of  goats  or  asses,  and  fierce  tusks.  They  are 
very  lean  and  have  the  arms  and  hands  of  mon¬ 
keys,  their  long  nails  being  curved  like  vul¬ 
tures’  talons.  Their  tails  are  long  and  they 
often  have  curious  legs,  one  of  them  that  of  an 
animal,  such  as  an  ass  or  goat,  the  other  of  a 
man,  but  with  the  feet  distorted.  Though 
lame  they  are  very  swift.  The  smaller  variety, 
generally  human  in  form,  has  curious  charac- 

[  166] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


teristics.  Thus  the  Arachovites  regard  them 
as  pygmies  who  ride  through  their  streets  in 
great  numbers  on  Christmas  night  in  a  droll 
procession — one  being  mounted  on  a  cock  with 
his  legs  trailing,  another  on  a  dog-sized  horse, 
another  on  a  huge  donkey,  and  still  others  on 
lame  or  one-eyed  or  one-eared  animals.  Here 
they  frequently  are  one-eyed  themselves,  or 
blind,  or  they  squint,  their  features  also  being 
askew.  Their  leader  has  a  very  large  head 
and  a  very  small  mouth  from  which  the  tongue 
protrudes.  He  keeps  the  rest  of  the  cavalcade 
in  order  with  his  shouts.  Some  carry  musical 
instruments  and  others  large  dry  pumpkins, 
which  are  thrown  to  the  ground  with  resound¬ 
ing  thumps. 

The  Callicantzari  are  generally  regarded  as 
stupid  and  quarrelsome.  They  roam  at  night, 
but,  like  all  spirits,  disappear  at  the  third 
cock-crow.  Then  they  return  beneath  the 
earth,  where  they  dwell  with  their  wives  feed¬ 
ing  on  snakes,  toads,  and  lizards,  and  spend 
their  time  trying  to  saw  through  the  great  tree 
on  which  the  earth  is  supposed  to  stand.  Dur¬ 
ing  their  absence  above  ground  the  tree  grows 
again  so  that  their  labor  is  in  vain.  They 
knock  at  doors  or  descend  the  chimney  and  de- 

[  167] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


file  the  pots  and  pans,  the  furniture,  the  food, 
and  especially  the  wells.  Again  they  disturb 
the  peasants’  slumber  by  throwing  bricks  down 
the  chimney  or  by  making  unearthly  noises. 
When  they  enter  a  house  they  sit  on  the  chests 
of  the  inmates  and  frighten  them  nearly  to 
death.  Hideous  to  look  upon,  they  increase 
their  ugliness  by  keeping  themselves  unkempt 
or  dressed  in  rags.  They  excrete  defilement 
through  their  noses  and  mouths.  Like  the 
“Arabs”  they  lust  after  women,  whom  they 
carry  off  to  their  caves. 

They  may  be  scared  off  by  pagan  magic  and 
by  certain  Christian  rites.  Among  the  former 
methods,  fire  is  chief.  So  the  hearth-fire  is 
kept  merrily  burning  during  the  twelve  days  of 
their  appearance,  and  bonfires  are  common. 
Or  a  burning  faggot  may  be  laid  before  the 
house-door  and  people  out  at  night  may  carry 
firebrands  with  them.  At  Arachova,  the 
drinking  pots  defiled  by  them  are  cleansed  with 
hot  coals,  and  polluted  wells  are  purified  either 
by  casting  such  coals  into  them  or  by  placing 
burnt  sticks  over  them.  In  Leo  Allatius’  day 
more  drastic  methods  were  used.  Children 
born  on  Christmas  Eve  were  then  brought  into 
the  market-place  of  the  village  and  had  their 

[  168] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 

feet  singed  in  a  big  bonfire  and  were  later 
anointed  with  oil.  In  this  way  the  child’s  po¬ 
tential  talons  were  destroyed — the  talons  be¬ 
ing  the  most  characteristic  part  of  a  Callicant- 
zarus.  Cakes  also  appease  them  nowadays,  as 
they  do  all  classes  of  spirits.  At  Melanik  in 
Macedonia,  Abbott  relates  how  the  peasants 
scald  the  Callicantzarus  on  New  Year’s  Eve. 
The  housewife  makes  cakes  within,  while  her 
husband  stands  outside  dressed  in  a  fur-coat 
turned  wrong  side  out,  and  dances  and  sings 
these  words: 

“I  am  a  Skantzos,  even  as  thou  art  one, 
Come,  then,  let  us  dance  together 
And  let  us  moisten  the  pastry  A  40 

This  song  is  continued  until  the  man  hears  the 
syrup  hiss  as  it  is  poured  over  the  cakes,  a 
sound  symbolic  of  the  scalding  of  these  mis¬ 
chievous  sprites.  On  Zante  and  Chios  a  sieve 
is  often  placed  upon  the  hearth.  The  Calli¬ 
cantzarus,  on  descending  the  chimney,  stops  to 
count  the  holes  in  the  sieve,  but  as  he  can 
never  reach  the  Christian  number  three,  he  is 
overtaken  by  dawn,  and  thus  his  arithmetical 
passion  proves  his  undoing.  In  Macedonia, 
mustard  or  millet  seeds  are  scattered  over  the 

[  169] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


roof  or  tomb  of  a  vampire,  since  the  vampire 
cannot  leave  his  tomb  nor  enter  a  house  until 
he  has  counted  them.  Herbs  are  also  hung 
over  the  chimney-piece  or  door  to  scare  the 
Callicantzari  away.  They  can  be  appeased  by 
offerings  of  pork,  their  favorite  food.  Rodd 
recounts  the  story  of  a  woman  on  Spetsa  who, 
with  two  others,  went  to  gather  firewood  on 
the  far  side  of  the  island  near  a  cave  on  the 
shore.  Soon  she  disappeared  and  days  later 
was  found  seated  upon  a  rock,  and  was  rescued 
by  sailors  in  a  boat.  She  remained  dumb  until 
taken  to  church,  where  the  spirit  was  exor¬ 
cised,  and  finally  she  regained  her  speech,  and 
told  how  the  Callicantzari  had  carried  her 
off. 

As  for  Christian  methods  of  driving  them 
away,  we  may  mention  that  on  Epiphany  eve, 
the  last  night  that  they  are  out,  the  priest  visits 
each  house  and  marks  a  cross  on  the  door  or 
on  the  kitchen  utensils  which  the  Callicantzari 
defile.  The  housewife  guides  him  around,  as 
he  pours  holy  water  into  every  corner,  and 
blesses  the  well  and  reads  the  office  over  a 
bowl  of  holy  water,  dipping  the  cross  with  a 
bunch  of  basil  into  it,  with  which  he  besprinkles 

[  17°  ] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


the  house.  Instead  of  the  old  Chiote  ordeal 
by  fire  already  mentioned,  nowadays  children, 
who  have  been  born  in  this  period  of  twelve 
days,  are  merely  baptized.  And  no  marriage 
is  supposed  to  be  solemnized  then.  On  Zante 
those  born  on  Christmas  Day  or  Eve  are  now 
believed  to  become  Callicantzari,  which  means 
that  they  may  have  been  conceived  at  the  festi¬ 
val  of  the  “Annunciation  of  the  Virgin”  on 
March  25;  such  conception  is  regarded  as  a 
sin  and  a  child  so  born  is  its  punishment.  Near 
the  town  of  Zante,  Schmidt  saw  a  peasant 
whom  the  townsfolk  regarded  as  a  Calli- 
cantzarus.  Sometimes  the  Christian  exorcism 
is  not  sufficient,  and  a  house  where  these  spirits 
elect  to  remain  becomes  haunted  and  must  be 
deserted. 

All  sorts  of  explanations  of  the  origin  of 
these  curious  spirits  have  been  offered,  a  few 
of  which  we  shall  briefly  notice. 

The  Greeks  themselves  believe  that  the 
larger,  malevolent  variety  comes  from  the  dis¬ 
embodied  souls  of  those  who  have  met  a  vio¬ 
lent  death  or  had  no  funeral  rites,  and  hence, 
like  the  vampires,  or  like  the  souls  of  the  un¬ 
buried  in  ancient  times,  roam  about  their  old 
haunts  for  revenge.  They  regard  the  mis- 

[171] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


chievous  smaller  variety  as  the  ghosts  of  an¬ 
cestors  who  still  linger  and  watch  over  the  wel¬ 
fare  of  their  old  homes — a  sort  of  degraded 
Manes  or  Lares.  Lawson,  by  ingenious  rea¬ 
soning,  has  tried  to  trace  the  Callicantzari  back 
to  the  old  Centaurs,  not  to  the  typical  hippo- 
centaurs  of  Greek  art  and  legend,  but  to  an¬ 
other  related  species  of  mixture  of  men  and 
animals,  especially  the  Satyrs.  He  points  out 
that  on  Macedonian  coins  a  Satyr  sometimes  is 
represented  with  a  horse’s  hoofs,  ears,  and  tail; 
and  Miss  Harrison  has  shown  that  Centaur  and 
Satyr  are  merely  different  types  of  the  horse¬ 
man.  Although  the  name  “Satyr”  is  no  longer 
heard,  Lawson  contends  that  the  genus  has  sur¬ 
vived  in  the  Callicantzarus.  By  the  beginning 
of  the  Christian  era  the  word  “Centaur”  com¬ 
prised  several  species  of  monsters  half-man 
and  half-beast,  horse-centaurs,  ass-centaurs, 
Satyrs  and  Sileni,  each  of  which  species  con¬ 
tributed  to  the  modern  Callicantzarus — the 
horse-centaur  least  and  the  ass-centaur  and  the 
Satyr  most.  Satyrs  and  Sileni  were  the  ordi¬ 
nary  companions  of  Dionysus,  and  conse¬ 
quently  the  Callicantzari  are  the  modern  rep¬ 
resentatives  of  the  associates  of  the  Wine-god. 
He  bases  his  theory  on  the  supposed  etymology 

[  172  ] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


of  the  word  and  on  the  mixed  state  and  char¬ 
acter  of  the  present  spirits. 

Long  before,  Schmidt  had  concluded  that 
the  night-roaming,  the  brutality,  the  sharp 
claws  and  teeth,  and  the  form-shifting  of  the 
larger  type  were  derived  from  the  were-wolf, 
which,  as  we  shall  see,  was  a  well-known  su¬ 
perstition  in  ancient  Greece.  He  pointed  out 
that  the  Turkish  name  Kara-kond-jolos  meant 
were-wolf,  and  that,  outside  of  Greece,  the 
were-wolf  appeared  only  at  Christmas  time. 
Similarly,  Abbott  has  referred  the  Callicant- 
zari  to  a  species  of  were-wolf  akin  to  the  mod¬ 
ern  Greek  vampire,  which  is  largely  a  survival 
of  the  ancient  belief  in  lycanthropy.  Rodd 
also  thinks  that  the  belief  that  children  born 
at  this  season  may  become  Callicantzari  and 
grow  tiger-like  claws  with  which  they  tear  and 
frighten  those  whom  they  meet,  may  point  to 
the  were-wolf  origin  of  these  daemons.  Miss 
Hamilton,  on  the  other  hand,  believes  that  the 
Callicantzari  are  merely  the  counterpart  of 
the  masqueraders  who  figured  so  prominently 
in  the  Graeco-Roman  festivals,  and  who  still 
appear  at  the  Carnival.  At  Christmas  time 
in  Greece  to-day  parties  go  from  house  to 
house  with  grotesque  masks  and  jangling  bells. 

1 173 1 


GREEK  RELIGION 


It  may  be  that  the  fear  inspired  by  such  masks 
caused  the  belief  in  the  demoniacal  nature  of 
these  spirits.  But  the  old  explanation  of  Leo 
Allatius  goes  back  farther  than  all,  in  tracing 
the  origin  of  the  Callicantzari  and  their  ancient 
prototype  as  well,  in  maintaining  that  these 
spirits  are  merely  the  result  of  nightmares 
caused  by  indigestion  following  the  feasting 
indulged  in  at  Christmas  time;  for,  as  he 
pointed  out,  these  spirits  have  characteristics 
of  nightmares — night-roaming,  jumping  on  the 
shoulders  and  sitting  on  the  chests  of  men,  and 
leaving  them  senseless  with  fear. 


[  174] 


VI.  D DEMONOLOGY :  LAMIAS, 
VAMPIRES,  AND  WERE¬ 
WOLVES 


E  NOW  turn  to  a  more  malevolent 
class  of  supernatural  spirits,  those 
characterized  by  their  lust  for  hu¬ 


man  blood.  In  the  Middle  Ages  these  were 
confused  in  the  popular  imagination  because 
of  their  common  propensity  to  prey  upon  chil¬ 
dren.  But  we  shall  find  that  they  are  distinct 
species  of  supernatural  powers,  and  go  back 
to  well-known  ancient  prototypes.  We  shall 
here  discuss  only  the  more  important  of  these 
malevolent  daemons — the  Lamias,  vampires, 
and  were-wolves. 

Traces  can  still  be  found  in  Greece  of  the 
Lamias,  the  fabulous  monsters,  who,  by  their 
voluptuous  arts,  enticed  young  men  to  their 
doom,  longing  for  their  blood.  The  old  name, 
Lamia,  now  more  commonly  spelled  Lamna 
and  Lamnissa,  and  the  old  characteristics  re¬ 
appear  in  many  legends.  The  name  is  applied 
sometimes  to  one  being,  and  again,  as  in  later 


[  175  ] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


antiquity,  to  a  class  of  beings.  They  now  ap¬ 
pear  as  both  land  and  water  spirits.  Thus  we 
hear  of  a  sea-power  named  Lamia,  related  to 
the  old  Nereids;  for  in  Elis  she  is  the  queen 
of  the  present  Nereids,  and  elsewhere  has 
replaced  Amphitrite,  the  wife  of  Poseidon. 
Nowadays  she  is  hostile  to  sailors,  against 
whom  she  arouses  the  storm-wind.  Schmidt 
found  a  pretty  legend  of  this  “shore  Lamia”  on 
the  northern  coast  of  the  Corinthian  Gulf  near 
Itea.  There,  if  a  man  plays  his  flute  at  mid¬ 
day  or  midnight  a  Lamia  comes  up  out  of  the 
water  and  invites  him  to  be  her  husband;  if  he 
refuses,  she  may  kill  him  for  the  slight.  Here 
they  have  the  characteristics  of  the  old  sirens, 
who  used  to  lure  storm-bound  sailors  to  their 
doom,  for,  under  the  hope  of  rescue,  sailors 
blindly  follow  the  ever  receding  voices  of  the 
Lamias.  Passow  gives  a  pretty  folk-song 
from  the  region  around  Salonica,  in  which  the 
shepherd  Gianes  plays  his  flute  on  the  shore, 
despite  many  warnings  of  his  mother.  At  last 
the  Lamia  appears  and  lays  a  wager  that  if  he 
tires  her  dancing  by  his  music  she  will  become 
his  wife,  but  if  she  tires  him  piping,  he  will  for¬ 
feit  his  flocks.  Gianes  plays  uninterruptedly 
for  three  days  and  nights  until  he  has  to  stop 

[176] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


through  sheer  weariness  and  so  loses  his  sheep 
and  goats. 

More  commonly,  however,  the  Lamias  are 
land  spirits  and  have  cannibal  characteristics 
which  are  especially  dangerous  to  children,  an 
idea  which  is  chiefly  derived  from  antiquity. 
In  this  form  they  are  hideous  monsters,  hav¬ 
ing  the  forms  of  gigantic  women  with  deformed 
limbs,  their  feet  being  represented  as  dissimi¬ 
lar  or  three  in  number,  one  being  that  of  an  ox, 
an  ass,  or  a  goat.  On  Corfu  and  Zante  many 
stories  are  told  of  their  voracity,  and  hence  ‘to 
eat  like  a  Lamia”  is  proverbial.  But,  for  the 
most  part,  they  have  ceased  to  inspire  fear  in 
the  country-folk,  and  like  their  counterparts  in 
antiquity,  the  Lamia,  Empousa,  and  Mormo, 
are  merely  bug-bears  by  which  mothers 
frighten  their  naughty  children.  When  a  child 
dies  suddenly,  it  is  said  the  “Lamia  has  stran¬ 
gled  it.”  The  name  is  also  used  of  a  scold¬ 
ing  woman.  But,  curiously  enough,  in  Ara- 
chova  the  Lamia,  by  some  subtle  alchemy,  has 
been  changed  into  a  good  spirit,  a  beautiful 
woman,  tall  and  graceful,  who  used  to  be  seen 
at  dusk  striding  through  the  streets  of  the 
town  or  seated  by  a  fountain  just  outside,  dis¬ 
taff  in  hand.  This  may  be  a  lingering  memory 

[  l77  ] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


of  the  Lamia  who  in  antiquity  dwelt  in  a  cave 
high  up  on  the  opposite  Mount  Cirphis  and 
ravaged  the  countryside  until  she  was  slain 
by  a  hero.  And  here  in  Arachova  handsome 
maidens  are  likened  to  Lamias,  just  as  else¬ 
where  in  Greece  they  are  likened  to  Nereids. 

Despite  her  propensity  to  gluttony  and  blood, 
the  modern  Lamia  is  of  noble  lineage.  The 
original  Lamia,  as  recounted  by  Diodorus  and 
others,  was  a  beautiful  queen  of  Libya  whose 
beauty  attracted  the  fatal  love  of  Zeus  himself. 
The  result  of  his  admiration  was  a  number  of 
lovely  children  of  which  the  jealous  Hera  de¬ 
prived  her.  Thereafter  the  mother  hid  among 
the  rocks  and  caverns  of  the  sea,  where  her 
beauty  was  turned  into  ugliness  and  her  good¬ 
ness  into  malevolence.  In  order  to  console 
herself  for  her  loss,  she  began  at  first  to  steal 
the  children  of  others,  and  then  to  afflict  them 
with  wasting  disease  or  to  kill  them  outright. 
To  spite  Llera,  Zeus  gave  her  the  power  to  take 
her  eyes  out  and  put  them  in  again,  in  this 
way  adding  terror  to  her  brutality  and  lust. 
Finally  she  also  attacked  old  men  and  women, 
and,  like  a  sinister  vampire,  sucked  their  blood. 
But  by  the  time  of  Aristophanes  the  Lamia 
had  become  the  joke  of  the  comic  stage,  and 

[  178] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


throughout  late  antiquity  she  figured  mostly 
in  nursery  legends  as  an  ugly  woman  of  great 
size,  ignorant  of  housewifely  arts,  as  at  present. 
In  later  times  the  Lamias  were  pictured  as  ly¬ 
ing  in  wait  along  the  roadside  for  youths  rather 
than  children,  and  they  were  able  to  change 
themselves  into  any  shape  in  order  better  to 
get  their  prey,  whose  heart-blood  they  were 
eager  to  suck.  Then  they  took  on  the  attrac¬ 
tive  forms  of  young  maidens,  though,  when 
not  disguised,  they  resumed  their  usual  forms, 
their  bodies  ending  in  the  tails  of  serpents,  be¬ 
ing  blood-stained  and  their  women’s  faces  red. 
This  vampire  type  of  Lamia,  as  described  by 
Philostratus,  was  at  the  base  of  Keats’  famous 
poem. 

The  most  repulsive  of  Greek  popular  super¬ 
stitions  is  the  belief  in  the  vampire,  known  gen¬ 
erally  on  the  mainland  by  the  Slavic  name 
vrykolakas  or  vourkolakas.  Although  educa¬ 
tion  and  the  Church  have  succeeded  in  reduc¬ 
ing  this  monstrous  belief,  it  is  still  to  be  found 
among  the  Greek  peasantry. 

A  Greek  vampire  is  not  a  disembodied  spirit, 
like  the  daemons  which  we  have  so  far  dis¬ 
cussed,  but  an  undissolved  body  or  reanimated 
corpse,  which  for  some  reason  cannot  rest  in 

[  179  ] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


the  grave,  and  consequently  rises  at  times  and 
roams  about  the  earth  preying  on  living  men. 
By  feeding  on  human  blood  it  renews  its  vi¬ 
tality,  and  hence  is  actuated  by  murderous  im¬ 
pulses.  Leo  Allatius  says  that  in  his  day, 
when  the  belief  was  far  stronger  than  it  is 
now,  it  was  believed  that  the  devil  got  into  the 
corpses  of  the  wicked  and  excommunicated, 
which  became  swollen,  and  the  joints  could  not 
be  bent.  He  says  that  they  issued  at  night  and 
roamed  about  knocking  at  the  doors  of  houses. 
Whoever  answered  the  knock,  was  sure  to  die 
next  day;  but  since  they  never  knocked  twice, 
those  within  never  answered  a  first  call. 
Nowadays  a  vampire  may  be  abroad  in  day¬ 
light,  but  generally  only  from  a  couple  of  hours 
before  midnight  until  cockcrow.  In  any  case 
he  must  return  to  his  grave  at  least  once  a 
week,  on  Saturday  according  to  Greek  belief, 
on  Friday  or  Saturday  according  to  Albanian. 

It  is  the  custom  among  Greeks  and  Orthodox 
Albanians  to  exhume  the  body  of  a  relative 
at  the  end  of  three  years  in  order  to  discover 
if  it  has  properly  decomposed.  The  Greek 
Church  officially  recognizes  this  custom  by  the 
petition  read  at  the  burial  service,  “dissolve 
into  thy  component  elements.”  If  the  body 

[  180] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


be  found  to  be  dissolved,  the  bones  are  washed 
in  wine,  and  are  carried  in  an  ossuary  to  the 
church  where  they  are  left  for  nine  days.  This 
may  be  in  part  a  reminiscence  of  the  old  cus¬ 
tom,  noted  already  in  the  Iliad ,  of  extinguish¬ 
ing  the  funeral  pyre  with  wine  and  collecting 
the  bones  after  cremation  into  a  cinerary  urn. 
After  the  nine  days  have  passed,  the  bones  are 
either  reburied  in  the  former  grave  or  cast 
into  the  charnel-house  of  the  church.  But  if 
the  body  is  not  dissolved,  the  soul  is  not  at 
rest,  and  the  corpse  becomes  a  vrykolakas. 
In  order  to  be  sure  that  it  has  decomposed,  the 
same  exhumation  ceremony  is  repeated  three 
years  later.  The  worst  Greek  curse  is:  “May 
the  earth  not  eat  thee,”  i.  e.y  “May  you  become 
a  vampire.”  Vampirism  is  supposed  to  be 
hereditary  in  certain  families,  which  are  con¬ 
sequently  shunned  by  their  neighbors.  The 
Romaic  poet  Valorites,  in  a  very  realistic  poem, 
has  described  the  rousing  from  their  graves  of 
the  wicked  Ali  Pasha  and  his  Greek  lieutenant 
Thanase  Vaghia  by  the  vampires  of  the  in¬ 
habitants  of  Gardici,  who  had  been  massacred 
by  them.  Perhaps  the  best  Greek  vampire 
story  is  one  from  Crete  long  ago  related  by 
Pashley.41 


C  181  ] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


The  Church  sanctioned  the  superstition  in 
the  early  centuries,  although  it  has  made 
strenuous  efforts  since  to  root  it  out.  It  used 
to  cite  in  its  defence  the  words  of  Jesus  to  his 
disciples,  in  Matthew:  “Whatsoever  ye  shall 
bind  on  earth,  shall  be  bound  in  heaven;  and 
whatsoever  ye  shall  loose  on  earth,  shall  be 
loosed  in  heaven.”  This  was  supposed  by 
some  to  mean  that  the  incorruptibility  of  a 
man’s  body  would  follow,  if  it  were  bound  by 
a  curse.  The  apostles  passed  the  power  on  to 
the  bishops  who  could  bind  or  loose,  i.  e.,  stop 
or  hasten  the  decay  of  the  body.  When  to-day 
a  vampire  is  abroad,  the  priest  reads  a  part  of 
the  ritual  at  the  suspected  grave.  If  this  proves 
inadequate,  the  grave  is  opened  and  the  body 
exposed  and  exorcised.  It  should  then  forth¬ 
with  fall  to  ashes.  In  extreme  cases  a  stake 
or  nail  is  driven  into  the  heart,  or  the  latter  is 
torn  out  and  boiled  in  oil  or  vinegar,  or  again 
the  whole  body  is  hacked  and  burnt.  Leake — 
who  says  that  in  his  day  it  was  difficult  to  meet 
with  an  example  of  the  superstition — tells  of 
the  belief  once  prevalent  in  Epirus  that  the 
devil  enters  the  vourkolakas,  who  rises  from 
the  grave  and  torments  his  relatives  and  others, 
killing  them  or  causing  them  to  sicken.  He 

[  182] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 

says  that  then  the  remedy  was  “to  dig  up  the 
body,  and  if,  after  it  has  been  exorcised  by  the 
priest,  the  daemon  still  persists  in  annoying  the 
living,  to  cut  the  body  into  small  pieces,  or, 
if  that  be  not  sufficient,  to  burn  it.”  42  Abbott 
tells  of  just  such  a  ceremony  at  Alistrati  in 
Macedonia,  a  village  between  Serres  and 
Drama,  where  the  corpse  of  a  suspected  vam¬ 
pire  was  exhumed  and  scalded  in  oil  and 
pierced  through  the  navel  with  a  long  nail. 
The  tomb  was  then  closed  and  millet  scattered 
over  it,  that  the  vampire,  if  he  should  return, 
might  waste  his  time  in  counting  the  grains  and 
thus  be  overtaken  by  daylight.  De  Tourne- 
fort,43  the  French  traveler,  in  1701  was  an 
eye-witness  of  the  destruction  of  a  vampire  on 
the  island  of  Myconus.  He  tells  with  all  the 
gruesome  details  how  the  body  was  finally 
transferred  to  the  neighboring  island  of  St. 
George,  and  there,  after  mass  in  the  chapel  had 
been  said,  the  heart  was  cut  out  and  buried, 
and  later,  since  the  apparition  continued,  the 
entire  body  was  burned  to  ashes.  The  island 
of  Hydria  was  formerly  infested  with  these 
monsters,  until  finally  a  friendly  bishop  trans¬ 
ferred  them  to  the  unoccupied  isle  of  Therasia 
in  the  Santorin  group,  where  they  still  roam  at 

[  183] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


night,  but  can  do  no  harm,  as  they  cannot  cross 
the  salt  water  to  their  old  haunts.  “To  send 
vampires  to  Santorin,”  is  said  to  be  as  common 
a  proverb  among  the  islands  of  the  ^Egean,  as 
“to  send  owls  to  Athens”  was  throughout  an¬ 
cient  Greece. 

The  civil  authorities  in  various  places  have 
been  instrumental  in  curtailing  the  superstition. 
Long  ago  the  Venetians  in  the  Ionian  islands 
demanded  proofs  before  allowing  suspected 
bodies  to  be  exhumed  and  the  resort  made  to 
more  extreme  measures.  The  Turks  also  tried 
to  suppress  atrocities  connected  with  extermi¬ 
nating  suspected  vampires  on  the  ^Egean  is¬ 
lands,  where  the  superstition  used  to  be  par¬ 
ticularly  rife.  But  despite  ecclesiastical  and 
civil  attempts  to  rout  it  out,  the  ghastly  super¬ 
stition  is  strong  in  some  parts  of  Greece  even 
yet.  Polites  tells  of  the  burning  of  a  vam¬ 
pire  near  Patras  as  late  as  1902. 

Various  causes  of  vampirism  have  been  ad¬ 
duced.  Those  who  have  been  excommuni¬ 
cated  by  the  Church,  those  convicted  of  great 
crimes,  and  those  dying  under  a  curse  or  by 
suicide  are  believed  to  become  vampires.  On 
Cephalonia  the  offspring  of  a  marriage  between 
a  woman  and  a  god-father  ( koumbaros )  may 

[  184] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 

become  one.  In  Maina  the  victim  of  a  mur¬ 
derer  becomes  a  vampire  and  haunts  his  slayer 
until  he  is  avenged.  If  a  cat  or  a  person  leaps 
over  a  corpse  which  is  lying  in  state  before 
burial,  the  body  may  become  animated. 

We  need  not  conclude,  however,  that  the 
Greeks  have  borrowed  more  than  the  name 
from  the  Slavs,  for  the  modern  superstition 
can  be  shown  to  go  back  to  the  ancient  Greek 
belief  in  lycanthropy  and  apparitions.  We 
meet  the  belief  in  vampires  in  parts  of  Greece 
where  the  Slavic  immigrants  did  not  penetrate, 
and  they  are  there  called  by  purely  Greek 
names,  which  shows  that  the  Greeks  had  the 
superstition  independently.  Thus  on  Crete 
and  Rhodes  a  vampire  is  a  katakhanas,  i.  e., 
“destroyer,”  or  a  tympaniaios,  i.  e.,  “drum¬ 
head,”  the  latter  name  manifestly  referring  to 
the  swollen  condition  of  the  body  and  its  con¬ 
sequently  tightly-drawn  skin.  On  Cyprus  he 
is  called  the  sarkomenos  or  “fleshy  one,”  ap¬ 
parently  from  the  fact  of  his  being  gorged  with 
food,  i.  e.y  blood.  On  Tenos  he  is  known  as 
the  anakathoumenos ,  “the  snatcher,”  or,  per¬ 
haps,  “the  restless  one.”  But  all  over  the 
mainland  the  vampire  goes  by  his  Slavic  name 
— a  name  which  appears  in  varying  forms  in 

1 185] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


all  the  Slavic  languages  of  southeastern 
Europe.  In  these  languages,  however,  the 
word  does  not  mean  strictly  a  vampire,  but 
rather  a  were- wolf  or  loup-garou ,  although  all 
these  peoples  believe  that  were-wolves  become 
vampires.  At  first  the  Greeks  also  used  vry- 
kolakas  in  the  sense  of  were-wolf  but  sometime 
after  the  tenth  century  the  word  began  to  de¬ 
note  a  vampire,  and  this  is  its  sole  meaning  in 
Greece  at  present. 

The  superstition  of  the  were-wolf,  lycan- 
thropy,  is  world-wide  and  differs  essentially 
from  that  of  the  vampire.  A  were-wolf  is 
merely  a  man  who,  for  certain  reasons,  pos¬ 
sesses  the  power  to  transform  himself  into  ani¬ 
mals,  into  a  wild  boar  in  Macedonia,  and  else¬ 
where  generally  into  a  wolf.  Vampires,  on  the 
other  hand,  are  revenants,  dead  men  returned 
to  life.  Since  both  vampires  and  were-wolves 
au*e  fond  of  blood  and  murder,  and  since  both 
at  times  take  on  beast  forms,  they  are  fre¬ 
quently,  but  wrongly,  confused  in  the  popular 
mind.  We  shall  trace  the  two  concepts  in  anti¬ 
quity  and  find  that  both  have  a  good  classical 
origin. 

Lycanthropy  was  a  well-known  Greek  and 
Latin  superstition.  Plato,  in  the  Republic , 

[  186] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


recounts  an  “old  tale”  that  he  who  tastes  of 
the  entrails  of  a  human  victim  mixed  with  those 
of  an  animal  victim  at  the  sacrifice  in  honor 
of  Zeus  Lycseus  in  Arcadia  becomes  thereby  a 
wolf.  Centuries  later,  Pausanias,  in  speaking 
of  the  same  sacrifice,  says  that  from  Lycaon’s 
day  onward  “a  man  has  always  been  turned 
into  a  wolf  at  the  sacrifice  in  honor  of  Lycsean 
Zeus,”  but  that  he  may  regain  his  former  ap¬ 
pearance  at  the  end  of  nine  years,  if  only  he 
has  abstained  all  that  time  from  eating  human 
flesh.  Euanthes,  quoted  by  Pliny,  adds  an¬ 
other  interesting  feature  to  the  story  to  the 
effect  that  lots  were  cast  in  a  certain  family, 
and  that  he  on  whom  the  lot  fell  became  the 
were-wolf.  The  man  was  brought  to  the  edge 
of  a  tarn,  when  he  stripped  and  swam  across 
and  fled  into  desert  places,  where  he  lived  as 
a  wolf  for  nine  years.  At  the  end  of  that 
period  he  returned  to  the  tarn,  swam  back,  put 
on  his  old  clothes,  and  once  more  became  a 
man.  Euanthes  also  seems  to  imply  that  the 
man  had  eaten  of  the  human  sacrifice;  but 
Pliny,  quoting  another  writer  named  Scopas, 
goes  on  to  say  that  Demsenetus,  a  Parrhasian, 
tasted  the  bowel  of  a  boy  victim  who  was  slain 
in  honor  of  Zeus  Lycseus  and  thereby  became 

[187] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


a  wolf.  After  nine  years  he  became  a  man 
again  and  even  won  a  boxing  match  at  Olympia. 
St.  Augustine  tells  the  same  story  as  that  found 
in  Pliny,  and  quotes  Varro  as  his  authority. 
The  latter  probably  got  his  information  from 
Euanthes  and  Scopas.  Herodotus  tells  us  that 
men  among  the  Neuri  of  eastern  Europe  be¬ 
came  wolves  for  a  few  days  each  year,  al¬ 
though,  of  course,  he  does  not  believe  the  story. 
Virgil  mentions  the  were-wolf,  and  Petronius 
tells  quite  an  extended  story  of  one. 

This  belief  in  were-wolves  has  survived  in 
some  degree  among  the  Greeks  of  to-day. 
Abbott  found  that  the  Macedonian  Greeks 
generally  believed  that  wicked  Turks  were 
changed  into  wild  boars  at  death  because  of 
their  sins. 

As  for  apparitions,  the  ancients  also  believed 
that  the  bodies  of  some  men  for  certain  rea¬ 
sons  remained  undissolved  after  death  and  rose 
from  their  graves  in  corporeal  form  and  wan¬ 
dered  about.  Such  apparitions  were  generally 
known  as  alastores,  “sinners,”  or,  “polluted 
ones.”  The  causes  for  such  returns  were  vari¬ 
ous — the  omission  of  burial  rites,  violent  death, 
and  the  commission  of  deadly  sins.  Such  were 
in  a  state  midway  between  life  and  death,  for 

[  188] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 

they  could  walk  on  earth,  but  must  lie  in  their 
graves  as  dead.  Plato,  in  the  Phcedo,  alludes 
to  the  belief  that  the  souls  of  wicked  men  wan¬ 
der  about  the  grave  after  death  as  shadowy 
ghosts,  a  belief  also  mentioned  by  other  Greek 
and  Latin  writers.  Several  ghost  stories  have 
come  down  to  us,  notably  one  told  by  Phlegon, 
from  which,  in  conjunction  with  Philostratus’ 
account  of  the  Lamia,  Goethe  got  the  mate¬ 
rial  for  Die  Braut  von  Corinth;  another  is 
told  by  the  younger  Pliny,44  according  to 
which  a  man  long  since  dead  haunted  an 
Athenian  house  until  his  bones  were  actually 
buried.  But  such  apparitions  were  not  vam¬ 
pires,  for  these  are  resuscitated  bodies  and  not 
ghosts.  But  the  blood  craved  by  the  vampire 
of  to-day  has  its  counterpart  in  the  blood 
craved  by  the  shades  of  former  men  in  anti¬ 
quity,  to  whom  human  sacrifice  was  often 
made.  This  is  the  nucleus  of  the  present  su¬ 
perstition.  Thus  the  shades  evoked  by  Odys¬ 
seus  in  Hades  regained  temporary  vitality  by 
drinking  the  blood  of  the  sheep  slain  at  the 
outer  trench.  In  the  Iliad  Achilles  slays  twelve 
Trojan  youths  at  the  grave  of  Patroclus. 
Neoptolemus,  in  the  Hecuba  of  Euripides, 
immolates  the  maiden  Polyxena  in  order  to  ap- 

[  189] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


pease  his  father’s  shade,  which  is  invited  to 
drink  her  blood.  Sophocles  has  CEdipus  say, 
in  reference  to  a  future  defeat  of  Thebes  in 
the  neighborhood  of  his  grave,  that  his  cold 
body  will  one  day  drink  the  warm  blood  of  the 
slain. 

Pausanias  tells  of  the  destruction  of  babies 
at  Corinth  by  the  sons  of  Medea,  because  she 
had  been  stoned  to  death.  At  the  command  of 
the  oracle  annual  sacrifices  were  held  in  their 
honor,  and  a  statue  of  Terror,  in  the  likeness 
of  a  frightful  woman,  which  Pausanias  saw, 
was  set  up,  and  the  destruction  ceased.  The 
same  writer  tells  a  similar  story  about  the 
devastation  of  the  South  Italian  town  of 
Temesa  by  the  Hero — the  spirit  of  one  of 
Odysseus’  companions  named  Polites,  who  had 
been  stoned  to  death  there  for  raping  a  maiden 
when  he  was  tipsy.  He  became  a  daemon  who 
preyed  on  the  inhabitants  until  they  in  despair 
were  about  to  seek  other  homes.  The  oracle, 
however,  told  them  to  appease  the  spectre  by 
erecting  a  temple  in  his  honor  and  by  giving 
him  each  year  their  most  beautiful  maiden. 
This  spectre  was  corporeal  enough  to  be  finally 
beaten  by  the  Olympic  victor  Euthymus,  a 
boxer  who  had  won  two  victories  in  480  and 

[  190  ] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


472  b.  c.,  and  who  happened  to  be  at  Temesa 
during  one  of  the  annual  sacrifices.  Entering 
the  temple,  he  saw  the  chosen  damsel,  and 
forthwith  fell  in  love  with  her.  Buckling  on 
his  armor  he  engaged  the  Hero  and  drove  him 
into  the  sea,  and  then  married  the  maiden. 
Pausanias  says  that  he  himself  saw  a  copy  of 
an  old  painting  of  the  town  in  which  the  ghost 
was  represented  as  a  black  figure  wearing  a 
wolf-skin.  In  this  story  he  gives  a  popular  ac¬ 
count  of  what  probably  was  the  visitation  of 
some  form  of  cholera,  common  to  the  regions  of 
South  Italy.  The  townsfolk  invented  the  in¬ 
genious  story  in  their  effort  to  attribute  the 
disaster  to  a  malign  spirit.  Pausanias  also  tells 
of  a  spectre  which  ravaged  the  Boeotian  city 
of  Orchomenus,  until  the  oracle  advised  the 
people  to  bury  the  remains  of  Actseon  who  had 
been  devoured  by  his  dog,  and  fashion  a  bronze 
statue  of  the  apparition  and  nail  it  to  a  rock. 
The  Periegete  says  he  saw  this  statue,  and  it 
even  appears  on  bronze  coins  of  Orchomenus. 

Enough,  then,  has  been  said  to  show  that  the 
present  Greek  vampire  has  the  nucleus  of  its 
origin  in  the  ancient  superstitions  about  were¬ 
wolves  and  spectres.  But  there  is  one  great 
difference  between  the  old  Greek  revenants  and 

[  l9I  ] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


the  modern  Romaic  vampires.  The  former 
were,  for  the  most  part,  reasonable  beings  who 
were  not  wantonly  cruel,  chiefly  those  who  had 
been  wronged  in  life  and  had  returned  to  work 
their  revenge  on  enemies.  But  the  latter  are 
beings,  like  the  Ghouls  of  the  Arabian  Nights , 
who  prey  indiscriminately  and  without  justi¬ 
fication  on  all  alike.  For  this  characteristic 
the  Greek  vampire  is  certainly  indebted  to 
Slavic  influence. 

The  religion  of  the  present  day  Greeks,  then, 
carries  a  great  burden  of  amazing  survivals  of 
ancient  superstitions  derived  from  a  dsemon- 
ology,  much  of  which  goes  back  even  to  pre¬ 
historic  days.  Such  notions  have  become  so 
deep-seated  and  instinctive  that  neither  educa¬ 
tion  nor  the  power  of  the  Church  has  been  able 
to  eradicate  them  wholly. 


1 192 1 


VII.  DESTINY,  GUARDIAN 
ANGELS,  DEATH,  AND  THE 
LIFE  HEREAFTER 


IN  THIS  final  chapter  we  shall  discuss  the 
modern  Greek  ideas  of  destiny,  death,  and 
the  life  hereafter — ideas  which  we  shall 
find  remarkably  similar  to  those  held  in  anti¬ 
quity. 

The  belief  in  the  old  Fates  is  still  deeply 
rooted  in  Greece.  Even  the  ancient  name  reap¬ 
pears  in  the  modern  Moirais.  They  are  gen¬ 
erally  regarded  as  three  dread  sisters,  wrinkled 
and  infirm,  and  dressed  in  black,  much  as  they 
were  described  by  Hesiod.  Only  in  later  anti¬ 
quity  were  they  artistically  pictured  as  young 
and  beautiful.  Sometimes  there  is  only  one 
Moira,  as  there  was  in  the  original  belief. 
Again,  as  on  Zante,  there  are  twelve  Fates,  the 
chief  of  whom  is  the  “Queen,”  who  carries  a 
fate-book  in  her  hand  containing  the  fate  of 
every  man  recorded  within.  Similarly,  Hesiod 
called  Atropus  the  “oldest  and  chief”  of  the 
Fates.  In  the  Zagori  district  of  Epirus 

[  193 1 


GREEK  RELIGION 


Schmidt  found  that  one  was  the  spinner  of  the 
life-thread,  another  the  apportioner  of  good 
fortune,  the  third  of  bad  fortune.  Hesiod  has 
the  Fates  “give  men  at  their  birth  both  evil  and 
good  to  have,”  and  the  general  Greek  concep¬ 
tion  was  that  Clotho  spun,  Lachesis  appor¬ 
tioned,  and  Atropus  cut  the  thread  of  life. 

The  Fates  are  still  inexorable  in  their  decrees 
and  are  even  thought  of  as  being  independent 
of  God’s  will.  But  they  are  not  wantonly  cruel, 
as  is  shown  by  the  belief  that  they  can  be 
placated.  Women,  in  order  to  win  their  favor, 
often  call  them  “the  good  ladies,”  and  lay  out 
entertainment  for  them  when  they  are  ex¬ 
pected.  Thus,  on  Corfu,  Schmidt  says  that 
wine,  bread,  candy,  and  even  money  are  set 
out  for  them,  and  that  sometimes  low  tables, 
with  three  stools  about  them,  are  placed  in 
peasants’  cottages,  upon  which  honey,  almonds, 
bread,  money,  and  jewels  are  laid.  In 
Macedonia  for  the  first  three  nights  after  a 
birth,  a  table,  covered  with  cloth,  is  set  be¬ 
neath  the  icon  of  the  Panaghia,  and  upon  it  are 
placed  bread,  salt,  and  money;  on  the  third 
day  a  second  table  is  set  with  a  honey-cake 
and  a  mirror  upon  it.  In  Greece,  frequently 
the  dog  is  tied,  all  furniture  is  moved  out  of 

[  194  ] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


the  way,  the  house-door  is  left  unlatched,  and 
a  light  is  kept  burning.  When  the  Fates  enter, 
silence  must  be  observed  and  they  become 
angry  if  they  find  that  proper  preparations 
have  not  been  made  against  their  coming.  The 
commonest  offerings  are  honey  and  cakes. 
Thus  Dodwell 45  found  in  the  inner  room  of  the 
rock-cut  chamber  on  the  Muses’  Hill  at  Athens, 
commonly  known  as  the  Prison  of  Socrates,  a 
small  feast  laid  out  which  consisted  of  a  cup 
of  honey,  white  almonds,  cake,  and  a  vase  of 
burning  aromatic  herbs.  These  things  had 
been  brought  by  two  Turkish  women  and 
placed  upon  an  altar-like  rock.  He  scandal¬ 
ized  his  attendant  by  feeding  the  cake  to  his 
donkey,  who  greedily  devoured  it  without  any 
compunction.  It  is  especially  in  grottoes  and 
caves  that  the  Moirais  are  supposed  to  abide, 
as  also  on  the  mountain  tops  of  Olympus  and 
Taygetus. 

The  Fates  generally  appear  at  the  birth  of 
a  child,  on  one  of  the  three  nights  thereafter, 
though  they  may  appear  again  on  the  fifth 
or  seventh,  when  they  determine  the  child’s 
destiny.  Just  so  Apollodorus  has  them  come 
to  Althaea,  the  mother  of  Meleager,  when  the 
latter  was  seven  days  old.  In  Arachova  they 

[  195 1 


GREEK  RELIGION 


write  their  decrees  upon  the  child’s  forehead, 
and  if  the  mother  finds  any  red  spots  on  the 
child’s  face,  these  are  left  untouched,  as  they 
are  called  the  ‘dating  of  the  Fates.”  But  ordi¬ 
narily  the  decrees  are  set  down  in  the  fate- 
book  already  mentioned  and  are  irrevocable. 
A  well-known  Greek  proverb  runs:  “What 
the  Fate  has  written  on  her  tablet,  no  axe  can 
cleave.” 

The  Fates  are  now  the  special  protectors  of 
women  and  marriage,  as  they  were  in  anti¬ 
quity.  Thus  Pollux  says  that  the  “hair-offer¬ 
ing”  of  brides  is  for  Flera  and  Artemis  and  the 
Fates.  Pindar  recounts  how  the  Fates  led 
Themis  in  a.  golden  chariot  from  Ocean  to 
Olympus  to  wed  Zeus,  and  Aristophanes  says 
that  they  sang  the  marriage-song  for  Zeus  and 
Hera.  Girls  before  marriage  will  now  place 
cakes  and  honey  in  caves  supposed  to  be 
haunted  by  the  Fates.  Pouqueville 46  says 
that  girls  made  such  offerings  in  a  grotto  at 
the  foot  of  Mount  Rigani  in  Aitolia  to  find  out 
if  they  were  to  marry  within  the  year.  If  the 
offering  disappeared,  the  answer  was  favorable. 
This  recalls  a  passage  in  Pausanias  in  which 
widows,  eager  to  remarry,  are  said  to  have 
made  offerings  in  a  grotto  of  Aphrodite,  which 

[  196] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 

was  situated  in  this  same  neighborhood. 
Galt 47  records  that  Athenian  girls  on  the  first 
night  of  the  full  moon  placed  honey,  salt,  and 
bread  on  a  plate  beside  the  Ilissus  near  the 
Stadium  and  in  return  were  promised  husbands 
by  the  Fates.  Women  seeking  fertility  make 
offerings  to  the  Fates.  Pouqueville  recounts 
how  such  women  and  those  already  enceinte 
used  to  rub  themselves  on  a  rock  near  the  foun¬ 
tain  of  Callirhoe  at  Athens  and  called  on  the 
Fates.  Wordsworth 48  mentions  a  grotto  at 
the  village  of  Cephissia  near  Athens,  where 
peasant  women  used  to  resort  “to  behold  their 
own  Moira.”  A  loose  fragment  falling  from 
the  vault  indicated  that  the  Fate  would  be  pro¬ 
pitious  to  their  prayers.  The  present  offering 
of  honey  recalls  the  statement  of  Pausanias 
that  the  Sicyonians  annually  made  libations  of 
honey  and  water  on  the  altars  of  the  Eumenides 
and  Fates  during  their  festivals. 

The  Fates  may  also  be  expected  at  death, 
although  Charus,  as  we  shall  see,  has  usurped 
most  of  their  functions  at  that  time.  On  Zante, 
when  a  man  dies,  his  “Fates,”  dressed  in  black, 
come  and  mourn  for  him;  in  Araohova, 
euphemisms  of  death  are  used.  Thus  one 
hears  such  expressions  as  “his  thread  is  cut,” 

1 197 1 


GREEK  RELIGION 


or  “his  spindle  is  wound  full,”  which  show  a 
connection  with  the  ancient  Greek  idea  of  the 
life-thread  spun  by  the  Fates. 

Side  by  side  with  the  belief  that  the  Fates 
fix  men’s  destiny  is  another  notion,  common 
in  modern  Greece  as  elsewhere,  that  a  guardian 
angel  is  in  charge  of  the  human  soul,  being  al¬ 
lotted  to  it  at  birth,  accompanying  it  through 
life,  and  finally  guiding  it  to  God  for  judgment 
and  thence  to  heaven  or  hell.  For  the  soul  is 
often  looked  upon,  as  it  was  in  Homer,  as  issu¬ 
ing  from  the  mouth  at  death,  and  it  is  often 
pictured  as  a  butterfly  or  other  small  winged 
body,  as  anciently  on  the  Harpy  Tomb  of 
Xanthus.  On  Cyprus  it  is  believed  that  the 
angel  stays  with  the  soul  for  forty  days  after 
death  before  leading  it  to  God.  This  belief 
in  guardian  angels  goes  back  to  remote  anti¬ 
quity,  when  each  man  was  believed  to  have 
one,  his  happiness  depending  upon  the  kind  al¬ 
lotted  to  him.  The  idea  passes  through  many 
variations.  Homer  calls  such  a  spirit  “Ker,” 
the  symbol  of  death  and  hate,  whose  chief  pur¬ 
pose  was  to  cause  trouble,  and  the  term  is 
woven  into  the  pages  of  Greek  literature  of 
every  subsequent  period.  In  the  Iliad  the 
wraith  of  Patroclus  speaks  of  his  “hateful 

[  198] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


Ker,”  which  had  been  assigned  him  at  his  birth, 
and  here  the  term  refers  to  a  concrete  fate. 
But  later  writers  more  often  call  this  spirit  a 
daemon,  which  can  beguile  men  to  virtue  or  to 
sin.  Pindar  speaks  of  a  “natal  daemon,”  a 
spirit  which  watches  over  a  man  from  his  birth. 
Plato  speaks  of  the  genius  of  each  individual 
to  which  man  belongs  in  life,  and  which  finally 
leads  him  to  where  the  dead  are  gathered, 
whence,  after  judgment,  he  is  guided  below. 
The  well-known  “daemon”  of  Socrates  was 
somewhat  different.  The  philosopher  believed 
that  he  constantly  received  warnings  of  a 
mantic  character  through  a  divine  sign. 
Among  the  early  Church  Fathers  and  the  Neo- 
Platonic  thinkers  it  was  assumed  that  he  was 
attended  by  a  daemon  or  genius,  and  even  to¬ 
day  certain  spiritualists  have  regarded  the 
sign  as  a  guardian  spirit.  But  Xenophon  and 
Plato  explicitly  show  that  Socrates  did  not  re¬ 
gard  the  sign  as  a  divinity  or  genius.  Thus 
Xenophon  says  it  was  a  warning  to  do  or  not  to 
do  and  was  never  disobeyed  ;  Plato  says  it  was 
a  “voice”  warning  him  to  refrain  from  certain 
courses  of  action  and  was  peculiar  to  Socrates. 
Perhaps  the  explanation  may  be  found  in  some 
hallucination  in  the  sense  of  hearing,  so  that 

[  199] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


the  suggestions  of  his  mind  seemed  to  be  pro¬ 
jected  beyond  him  and  returned  through  his  ear. 
Polydaemonism,  or  the  belief  in  good  and  bad 
daemons,  was  characteristic  of  the  later  period 
of  Greek  religion.  The  same  idea  of  a  protect¬ 
ing  “genius”  was  also  common  in  Roman  reli¬ 
gion.  Each  man  at  birth  received  one,  which 
was  worshipped  on  birthdays  with  libations  of 
wine,  with  incense,  and  flowers.  Later,  during 
the  Empire,  the  whole  Roman  people  had  its 
genius ,  which  is  pictured  on  coins  of  Trajan 
and  Hadrian.  The  idea  of  a  guardian  angel 
is  also  found  in  the  Roman  Church  to-day. 

In  Greece  to-day  the  angel  may  be  good  or 
bad;  the  two  are  supposed  to  exist  side  by  side, 
the  one  in  conflict  with  the  other  for  supremacy 
in  the  guidance  of  a  man’s  life.  The  bad 
angel  is  sometimes  merely  the  Devil  personi¬ 
fied.  As  each  in  turn  may  succeed  in  the 
struggle,  so  is  a  man’s  life  good  or  bad.  Folk¬ 
songs  frequently  picture  the  good  angel  as  giv¬ 
ing  good  advice  to  a  man  or  helping  a  woman 
in  childbirth.  But  it  is  easily  frightened  off 
by  the  bad  angel,  although  it  never  goes  far 
away.  On  Cythnus  it  is  seen  only  at  death, 
when  a  man’s  broken  words  during  the  death 
struggle  are  believed  to  be  addressed  to  his 

[  200] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


angel.  If  he  dies  hard,  the  bad  angel  is  su¬ 
preme,  and  vice  versa.  In  some  parts  a  man 
born  on  Saturday  is  believed  to  be  able  to  see 
his  angel.  Similarly,  in  antiquity  it  was  rare 
that  the  protecting  genius  let  itself  be  seen. 
The  locus  classicus  is  found  in  Plutarch’s 
Brutus ,  where  the  ghost  of  the  Roman  general 
appeared  to  him  before  the  fateful  battle  of 
Philippi.  While  the  camp  was  wrapped  in  si¬ 
lence  there  came  to  the  warrior  a  “strange  and 
dreadful  apparition,  a  monstrous  and  fearful 
shape,”  to  tell  him  his  immediate  fate.  When 
asked  who  he  was  the  spirit  answered,  “I  am 
thy  evil  genius,  Brutus,  and  thou  shalt  see  me 
at  Philippi.” 

Many  present-day  funeral  customs  recall 
ancient  ones  both  Greek  and  Roman,  though 
they  have  been  colored  by  Christian  rites. 
Thus  the  old  custom  of  carrying  the  dead  un¬ 
covered  on  the  bier,  which  dates  back  to  Solon’s 
law  that  corpses  should  be  carried  to  the  grave 
exposed  to  the  chest,  is  reflected  in  the  present 
custom  of  exposing  the  body  in  the  coffin. 
Popularly,  it  is  believed  that  this  custom  is  due 
to  a  decree  of  the  Turks,  issued  long  ago  to  pre¬ 
vent  the  clandestine  transmission  of  arms.  But 
the  fact  that  it  is  also  observed  in  the  Russian 

[  201  ] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


Orthodox  Church  disproves  any  such  explana¬ 
tion.  Church  dignitaries  used  to  be  carried 
to  the  grave  seated  upright  in  their  episcopal 
chairs  and  robes.  The  ancient  purification 
after  contact  with  the  dead  is  also  seen  in  the 
custom,  which  is  still  revered  on  the  islands  and 
elsewhere,  of  throwing  an  earthen  pitcher  out 
of  the  door  to  be  broken  on  the  steps  after  the 
coffin  has  been  carried  out.  In  Arachova 
pitchers  are  broken  in  this  way,  and  on  Corfu 
water  is  thrown  from  the  windows  after  the 
procession  has  passed.  In  Maina  women  still 
cut  off  tresses  of  their  hair  and  throw  them 
into  the  grave,  just  as  Electra,  in  Sophocles’ 
drama,  invited  her  sister  Chrysothemis  to  cut 
one  of  her  locks  for  the  grave  of  Agamemnon. 

Improvised  dirges  are  sung  as  the  corpse  is 
carried  out,  and  again  at  the  grave,  by  female 
relatives  or  by  professional  wailers,  whose 
business  it  also  is  to  memorize  verses  specially 
composed  for  the  occasion.  These  recall  the 
threnodoi  of  the  women  mourners  sung  about 
Hector’s  body. 

The  present-day  funeral  feasts  are  also  de¬ 
scended  from  the  classical  perideipnon.  On 
returning  from  the  grave  the  mourners  are  met 
at  the  door  by  a  servant  who  pours  lustral 

[  202  ] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


water  into  a  basin  in  which  all  must  lave  their 
hands  before  re-entering  the  house.  This  re¬ 
minds  us  of  the  ancient  ablution  before  the 
body  was  carried  out.  At  stated  times  in 
Macedonia,  on  the  eighth  and  fortieth  day  after 
burial,  or  on  the  anniversary  of  the  death,  a 
memorial  feast  is  celebrated.  Then  the  grave 
is  again  decorated  with  flowers,  a  mass  is  sung, 
and  an  offering  of  the  kolyva  or  wheaten  cakes 
already  discussed,  is  made  at  the  church,  since 
wheat  is  the  symbol  of  resurrection.  Similarly, 
in  Greece  on  the  third,  ninth,  and  fortieth  day, 
and  again  six  months  after  death,  the  kolyva 
are  placed  on  the  grave  and  left,  or  are  divided 
among  the  poor.  This  seems  to  be  a  survival 
of  the  feast  of  pots  held  at  the  ancient  Anthes- 
teria,  when  the  Athenians  in  common  boiled 
vegetables  and  offered  them  to  Hermes  and 
the  chthonian  deities. 

Perhaps  the  most  widely  known  supersti¬ 
tion  of  the  Greeks  is  that  of  Charon,  who  is 
now  known  as  Char  us  or  Charondas.  Though 
retaining  the  old  name  with  little  change,  the 
modern  Charus  is  no  longer  the  ferryman  of 
the  Styx — that  superstition  apparently  sur¬ 
viving  only  in  one  folk-song  from  Zante — but 
the  personification  of  Death,  who  snatches 

1 203  ] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


away  souls  from  mortals  and  leads  them  to 
the  world  below.  So  he  has  taken  over  the 
function  of  the  Homeric  Hades,  a  name  which 
no  longer  refers  to  a  person  as  it  did  in  Homer, 
but  rather  to  the  lower  world  of  Charus.  Here 
Charus  dwells  with  his  wife  Charondissa,  with 
his  mother  and  son,  the  latter  being  represented 
as  holding  the  key  of  Hades  so  that  none  may 
escape.  Pausanias  makes  mention  of  this  key 
which  kept  all  within  the  confines  of  Hades. 

Charus  is  often  represented  as  a  tall  and 
gaunt  old  man  with  white  hair  and  claws,  cruel 
and  crafty.  Again  he  is  a  strong  and  vigorous 
warrior  with  yellow  or  black  hair,  who  rides 
along  the  roads  on  a  black  horse  bearing  his 
fatal  summons.  In  an  island  song  49  he  ap¬ 
pears  as  a  giant  whose  “look  is  like  the  light¬ 
ning,  his  complexion  like  fire,  while  his 
shoulders  stand  out  like  two  mountains  and  his 
head  like  a  fortress.”  His  raiment  is  either 
black  or  bright.  In  another  song  he  is  “un¬ 
shod  and  in  glistening  raiment,  his  hair  like  the 
sun  and  his  eyes  like  lightning.”  Flashing 
eyes  are  always  characteristic  of  him  as  they 
were  of  the  ancient  Charon.  In  antiquity, 
Death  was  black;  thus  Euripides  calls  him  the 
“sable-vestured  king  of  corpses,”  and  again  he 

[  204] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


says  that  “the  blackness  of  death  hath  shrouded 
the  eyne  of  the  righteous.”  A  famous  folk¬ 
song,  known  as  “Charus  and  the  Souls,”  50  has 
painted  him  in  most  impressive  colors.  Just  as 
Death  in  St.  John’s  vision  appeared  seated 
upon  a  pale  horse,  with  Hell  following  after, 
and  as  the  Valkyries  of  Norse  legend,  so 
Charus  rides  along  on  a  black  charger  driving 
bands  of  youthful  souls  before  him,  dragging 
troops  of  aged  souls  after  him,  while  on  his 
saddle-bow  he  carries  the  souls  of  little  chil¬ 
dren.  And  as  he  passes,  the  earth  quakes  be¬ 
neath  the  hoofs  of  his  steed,  and  the  mountains 
are  darkened  by  his  shadow.  The  aged  souls 
beseech  him  to  let  them  drink  at  a  nearby 
fountain,  but  he  sternly  refuses.  This  song 
reminds  us  of  the  scene  in  the  Odyssey ,  where 
Hermes  with  his  wand  leads  the  souls  of  the 
suitors  down  the  dank  ways,  and  they  follow 
gibbering.  We  are  also  reminded  of  the  story 
from  German  poetry  of  how  the  father  rides 
through  the  night-storm  with  his  child  at  his 
saddle-bow,  and  the  latter  is  touched  by  the 
Erl-king,  although  Goethe  derived  his  inspira¬ 
tion  from  Danish  rather  than  Greek  sources. 

It  has  often  been  pointed  out  that  there  are 
two  concepts  in  the  picture  of  Charus,  the  one 

[  205  1 


GREEK  RELIGION 


pagan,  the  other  Christian.  According  to  the 
one  he  is  merciless  and  hardhearted,  deaf  to  en¬ 
treaty  and  blind  to  beauty.  His  usual  epithets 
are  “black,”  “bitter,”  and  “hateful,”  and  he  is 
the  equal  of  God  in  power,  though,  unlike 
him,  inexorable.  In  one  distich  we  read: 
“Against  the  wounds  that  Charus  deals,  herbs 
avail  not,  physicians  give  no  cure,  nor  saints 
protection.”  It  is  his  pleasure  to  separate 
mother  and  child,  husband  and  wife,  brother 
and  sister,  loved  and  beloved.  “Spare  thou 
mothers  who  have  young  children,  brothers 
who  have  sisters;  spare  thou  also  newly  wedded 
pairs.”  51  To  this  appeal  of  his  mother  he 
answers:  “Wherever  I  find  three,  I  carry  off 
two,  and  where  I  find  two,  I  carry  off  one,  and 
when  I  find  one  alone,  him  also  I  carry  off.” 
In  the  Greek  Anthology  it  was  similarly  the 
savage  Charon  who  “cut  off  a  youth  from 
pleasure,  not  yet  knowing  wedlock,”  or  in¬ 
satiably  took  the  lives  of  youths.  In  another 
aspect,  however,  we  see  Christian  influence. 
Here  Charus  is  the  servant  of  God,  and  we  even 
hear  of  a  St.  Charus  who  is  charged  by  God 
with  the  duty  of  escorting  souls  below  and 
who  thus  encroaches  upon  the  prerogatives  of 
St.  Michael,  the  successor  of  Hermes  in  that 

[  206] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 

office.  In  the  songs  in  which  he  is  represented 
as  a  Christian  messenger  his  character  is  fre¬ 
quently  softened,  and  he  appears  unwilling  to 
snatch  away  the  souls  of  children,  maidens,  and 
youths.  At  times  he  is  even  the  friend  of  men, 
as  in  a  folk-story  recounted  by  Lawson.  Still 
he  must  do  his  duty  relentlessly,  even  though 
he  shifts  the  responsibility,  and  says  to  his 
victim  that  “God  has  sent  me  to  take  thy  soul.” 

Charus  often  appears  as  a  warrior  strong  in 
archery  or  in  the  wrestling  art,  often,  like 
Apollo  of  old,  slaying  youths  with  his  arrows. 
At  times  he  grants  delay  or  accepts  a  wres¬ 
tling  or  leaping  match,  knowing  full  well  that 
he  must  be  victor.  So  the  death  agony  in 
Greece,  as  with  us,  is  often  euphemistically 
called  “wrestling  with  death,”  and  around  this 
idea  have  been  woven  many  folk-songs.  In 
one  of  these  from  Arachova  he  lies  in  wait  in  a 
mountain  defile  for  the  shepherd  Tsopanes,  and 
suddenly  appears  to  demand  his  soul.  The 
youth  suggests  a  wrestling  match  on  a  nearby 
threshing-floor,  and  agrees,  if  beaten,  to  forfeit 
his  life.  For  three  days  and  two  nights  the 
bout  continues.  On  the  third  day  at  noon 
Charus  is  injured  by  a  blow,  and  then  in  anger 
uses  unfair  means,  grasping  the  shepherd  by 

[  207  ] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


the  hair  and  throwing  him.  The  vanquished 
youth  vainly  asks  for  a  three-day  respite  in 
order  to  return  home  once  more  to  feast  and 
drink  and  take  leave  of  his  loved  ones.  Sim¬ 
ilarly,  Euripides  has  Heracles  wrestle  with 
Death  for  the  life  of  Alcestis. 

Charus  as  the  personification  of  Death  rather 
than  as  ferryman  of  the  Styx  has  led  Fauriel 
to  conclude  that  only  the  name  and  not  the  at¬ 
tributes  of  the  old  Charon  have  survived.  In 
Greek  literature  Charon  is  always  the  ferry¬ 
man,  but  the  idea  is  certainly  later  than  Homer 
and  Hesiod.  The  first  literary  reference  to 
it  seems  to  have  been  in  the  Minyad,  an  epic 
attributed  by  Pausanias  to  Prodicus  of  Phocaea, 
and  hence  not  very  old.  Two  lines  of  this  epic, 
which  refer  to  the  descent  of  Pirithoiis  and 
Theseus  into  Hell,  speak  of  Charon  as  ferry¬ 
man,  a  scene  which  Pausanias  says  was  also 
pictured  by  Polygnotus  in  his  Delphic  paint¬ 
ing  of  the  lower  world.  ^Eschylus,  in  the 
Seven  Against  Thebes ,  speaks  of  Charon’s 
“black-sailed  galley,  sunless,  untrodden  by 
Apollo,  that  leads  to  the  unseen  landing-place 
that  is  the  bourne  of  all.”  Euripides  and  Aris¬ 
tophanes  continued  the  same  tradition.  But 
other  folklorists  have  found  it  more  reasonable 

[208] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


to  derive  Charus  from  popular  rather  than 
literary  sources  of  antiquity.  Doubtless  the 
popular  concept  was  larger  than  the  one  re¬ 
flected  in  Greek  literature  and  art,  and  hence 
we  are  justified,  perhaps,  in  following  the  rea¬ 
soning  of  Lawson,  Schmidt,  and  others  that 
Charon  originally  was  Death,  a  character  in 
which  he  appears  in  several  late  Greek  writers. 
This  older  non-literary  concept,  then,  did  not 
die  out,  but  has  lived  on,  reappearing  in  the 
modern  Greek  folklore.  Schmidt  believes  that 
the  classical  idea  of  Charon  as  ferryman  came 
to  the  Greeks  from  Egypt,  rather  than,  as  has 
been  suggested,  from  a  theater-figure  of  the 
Greek  drama.52  On  the  walls  of  Etruscan 
tombs  Charon  is  always  represented  as  the 
god  of  death  and  not  as  ferryman,  either  watch¬ 
ing  at  the  gate  of  Hell  or  leading  the  dead 
below,  separating  relatives  and  lovers  who 
stretch  out  their  hands  to  him  in  fruitless  sup¬ 
plication.  It  is  improbable  that  a  mere 
theater  figure  should  have  reached  so  deeply 
into  the  religious  consciousness  of  the  Greeks. 

The  custom  of  placing  a  coin  in  the  dead 
man’s  mouth  has  survived,  at  least  until  re¬ 
cently,  in  various  parts  of  Greece.  Abbott, 
Rodd,  Miss  Hamilton,  and  others  have  cited 

[  209] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


examples  of  it  in  Macedonia,  Thrace,  Albania, 
and  on  the  ^Egean  islands.  On  Zante  Schmidt 
met  an  old  woman  who  remembered  the  cus¬ 
tom,  and  at  Steinmachus  in  Thrace  he  found 
it  still  in  vogue  and  that  the  coin  was  intended 
“for  Charus.”  On  the  Cyclades,  and  in  parts 
of  the  mainland  Lawson  also  met  people  who 
recalled  the  custom.  Stephani,53  in  1842, 
found  it  in  villages  beyond  Mount  Othrys  near 
Lamia.  Newton,54  met  it  in  Macedonia, 
where  Turkish  coins  were  used,  but  with  a 
Turkish  idea  in  mind,  that  the  money  was  in¬ 
tended  for  toll  over  the  “hair-bridge.”  Near 
Smyrna  the  coin  so  placed  was  called  “passage- 
money,”  and  consequently  it  has  been  referred 
generally  to  the  ancient  Greek  custom  of  plac¬ 
ing  a  coin  in  the  mouth  of  a  corpse  to  pay 
the  ferryman  Charon.  Excavators  have  found 
coins  in  the  mouths  of  many  corpses  of  ancient 
Greeks,  the  mouth  being  regarded  as  the 
pocket-book  of  the  dead.  Bent  even  records 
that  in  his  day  the  obol,  mentioned  by  Lucian 
and  others,  was  called  “boat-money,”  in  a  vil¬ 
lage  on  Naxos. 

But  it  is  doubtful  if  the  modern  custom  is 
generally  intended  for  Charus,  the  present  rep- 

[  210  ] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


resentative  of  Charon.  The  ancient  custom 
may  have  been  kept  up  for  quite  a  different 
reason.  Sometimes  instead  of  a  coin  it  is  a 
morsel  of  bread  from  the  Eucharist  which  is 
laid  on  the  lips  of  the  dead.  Again  it  may  be 
a  piece  of  pottery  on  which  the  Greek  letters, 
I  X  NI  KA,  (’i^o-otk  X/atcrro?  viKa )  are 
written.  In  such  cases,  at  least,  the  custom 
can  have  nothing  to  do  with  Charus,  but  is 
intended  as  a  prophylactic  against  evil  spirits, 
such  as  the  Telonia  which  we  have  discussed 
in  a  preceding  chapter,  or,  perhaps,  to  keep 
the  soul  from  reentering  the  body  as  a  vam¬ 
pire.  The  record  of  Newton  about  Turkish 
coins  being  used  also  proves  that  the  custom 
in  Macedonia  cannot  have  been  meant  for 
Charus.  Again  it  was  a  key  which  was  laid 
upon  the  dead  man’s  breast;  this  could  not 
have  been  intended,  as  Schmidt  believed,  to 
open  the  gates  of  Paradise,  but  merely  as  a 
charm.  He  records  that  in  a  cemetery  at 
Mariais  on  Zante  many  Venetian  copper  coins 
and  keys  have  been  found  among  graves  which 
were  at  least  a  century  old.  On  the  whole, 
then,  it  seems  more  logical  to  conclude  that 
where  the  custom  has  been  practiced  in  modern 

[  2 1 1  ] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


times,  it  is  a  survival,  to  be  sure,  of  the  ancient 
one,  but  with  a  very  different  meaning,  in  part, 
at  least,  influenced  by  Christianity. 

The  Church  for  a  long  time  has  tried  to  get 
rid  of  this  custom,  but  not  always  with  success. 
While  Schmidt  records  that  in  the  villages  of 
Cephalonia  at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  cen¬ 
tury  the  archbishop  of  the  island  was  success¬ 
ful  in  stopping  it,  Newton  tells  of  the  methods 
used  in  vain  by  the  archbishop  of  Mitylene 
to  end  the  practice  in  Macedonia  by  represent¬ 
ing  that  Turkish  coins  were  unfit  for  Christian 
graves.  The  peasants  there  have  gotten  round 
the  prohibition  by  substituting  little  crosses 
of  wax  for  the  traditional  coins. 

In  conclusion,  we  shall  describe  the  life  here¬ 
after  as  it  appears  in  the  folk-songs  and  folk- 
stories  of  to-day. 

Side  by  side  with  the  Christian  idea  of  Para¬ 
dise  and  Hell — the  latter  being  known  indif¬ 
ferently  as  the  “place  of  punishment,”  “pitch,” 
or  even  “Tartarus” — the  modern  Greeks  have 
also  retained  much  of  the  old  Homeric  con¬ 
ception,  which  we  have  outlined  in  our  opening 
chapter.  Paradise,  even  as  Eden,  is  a  park¬ 
like  garden  with  shady  trees  and  cool  streams. 
Tartarus  is  sometimes  a  place  where  brave 

[  212  ] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


pallicars  dwell,  and  again  where  the  wicked 
are  tied  to  a  fiery  wheel  which  is  constantly 
turning,  a  reminiscence  of  the  wheel  to  which 
Hermes  tied  Ixion  for  wantonly  approaching 
Hera,  the  queen  of  Heaven.  The  old  word 
Hades  is  often  used  of  the  Christian  future 
world.  But  to  the  popular  mind  Hades  is  the 
realm  of  Charus,  the  “lower  world,”  which  lies 
deep  below  the  earth  and  is  the  common  home 
of  all  the  dead.  The  ancient  notion  is  still 
prevalent  that  a  stream  is  at  its  entrance, 
which  the  souls  must  cross,  certainly  a  reminis¬ 
cence  of  Lethe,  from  which  forgetfulness  is  still 
drunk: 

“W here  they  cross  the ■  river  and  drink  the  water 
and 

Become  forgetful  of  their  homes  and  orphaned 
children ” 

As  caverns  and  gorges,  existing  in  different 
parts  of  Greece,  were  anciently  regarded  as 
entrances  to  Hades,  so  they  are  still  to-day. 
The  best  known  of  all  is  a  rock-cavern  on  the 
western  side  of  the  promontory  of  Taenarum — 
Cape  Matapan — close  to  the  sea.  Here  the 
archangel  Michael  now  appears  and  releases 
the  souls  which  God  has  forgiven,  or  leads 

[  213  ] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


others  below.  It  was  nearby  that  Pausanias 
located  the  cavern  where  Heracles  descended 
to  bring  up  Cerberus.  On  Zante  there  is  a 
great  water-hole  known  as  the  “Abyss,”  which 
is  another  entrance.  It  is  regarded  by  the 
peasants  as  bottomless,  just  as  is  the  Alcyonian 
pool  near  Lerna,  where  Dionysus  was  anciently 
believed  to  have  descended  into  Hell  to  fetch 
up  Semele.  Still  another  entrance  is  situated 
on  the  southern  shore  of  Zante  where  the  foot¬ 
hills  of  Mount  Scopus  rise  perpendicularly 
from  the  sea.  Here,  twenty  feet  above  the 
ground,  is  a  grotto  whence  a  waterfall,  called 
“Thunder-water,”  issues  in  winter.  Its  lonely 
and  difficult  position,  and  the  beating  of  the 
surf  below,  lend  themselves  to  the  belief,  and 
no  peasant  will  approach  it. 

In  the  Romaic  folk-tales  there  are  also  a 
few  reminiscences  of  the  many-headed  dog 
which  once  guarded  the  entrance  to  Hades. 
In  two  tales  in  the  von  Hahn  collection,  one 
Greek,  the  other  Albanian,  this  monster  is  men¬ 
tioned.  In  the  Albanian  story  he  appears  as 
a  “three-headed  dog  that  sleeps  not  day  nor 
night,”  but  guards  the  subterranean  abode  of 
the  “beautiful  one.”  In  the  Greek  story,  he 
appears  rather  as  a  three-headed  snake,  which 

[  214] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


is  ever  on  guard.  Schmidt  also  gives  a  song 55 
in  which  Cerberus  appears  with  all  his  ancient 
features  and  with  the  added  modern  touch  that 
Charus  is  afraid  of  him.  In  this  song  Charus 
says:  “ A  savage  dog  have  I,  who  guards  us 
all,  and  when  he  sees  me  he  rages,  and  would 
fain  devour  me.  A  three-headed  dog  is  he, 
and  he  burns  like  fire;  his  claws  are  sharp  and 
his  tail  is  long;  from  his  eyes  he  gives  forth 
flame,  and  from  his  mouth  burning  heat;  long 
is  his  tongue  and  grim  his  teeth.”  But  in  most 
of  the  songs  and  tales  it  is  Charus  who  is  on 
guard,  for  now  he  has  taken  over  not  only 
Pluto’s  duties,  but  those  of  Cerberus  as  well. 

To  the  average  Greek  of  to-day  as  to  the 
Greek  of  Homer’s  time  death  is  the  worst  of  all 
evils.  The  Greeks  have  no  pleasing  vision  of 
the  future,  for  Hades  is  still  a  gloomy,  comfort¬ 
less,  and  monotonous  place  for  all  who  die. 
There  no  cock  crows,  no  hen  cackles,  no  water 
flows,  and  no  grass  is  found,  as  the  bereaved 
parents  in  one  song  tell  their  daughter.  The 
dead  long  for  the  sunlight,  just  as  Achilles  did. 
Hades  is  “icy-cold,”  or  “thick  with  spiders’ 
webs,”  epithets  which  recall  Hesiod’s  phrase, 
“the  mouldering  house  of  chill  Hades.” 
Existence  below  is  the  very  negation  of 

[  215  ] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


life  above,  where  the  hungry  cannot  eat,  nor 
the  thirsty  drink,  nor  the  weary  sleep.  The 
dead  are  called  “the  waterless”  and  “the 
thirsty”  in  the  song  of  a  widow.  Here  there 
is  neither  rank  nor  distinction.  In  a  story 
from  Cephalonia,  the  wife  of  Charus  is  sorry 
for  a  fastidious  youth  who  cannot  sit  except  in 
an  arm-chair,  nor  drink  without  a  glass,  nor 
eat  without  a  napkin,  nor  sleep  without  a  pil¬ 
low.  But  Charus  brutally  says  he  will  make 
him  accept  his  lot.  Girls  are  deprived  of  their 
ornaments,  youths  of  their  weapons,  and  chil¬ 
dren  of  their  clothes.  Some  songs  express  the 
wish  of  the  dead  that  shop-keepers  be  sent  be¬ 
low  to  supply  their  needs  and  thus  lighten  their 
woes. 

Body  and  soul,  as  frequently  in  Homer,  are 
still  identified;  for  the  dead  have  bodies  as 
they  had  on  earth,  even  though  these  are 
merely  the  “semblances”  ( eidola )  of  their 
earthly  existence.  Unlike  the  Homeric  dead, 
they  have  self-consciousness,  feeling,  and 
speech,  so  that  life  below  is,  in  one  sense,  a 
continuation  of  life  above.  In  some  songs  a 
more  comforting  picture  of  this  life  is  given, 
which  recalls  the  brighter  hues  found  in  Pin¬ 
dar’s  picture  of  the  hereafter.  In  them  mar- 

[2X6] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


riages  are  solemnized  with  music.  In  a  song 
from  Zante  we  read  of  the  garden  of  Charus, 
where  he  walks  amid  the  cypresses,  and  where 
the  young  girls  dance,  and  the  young  men  sing 
and  play,  a  scene  which  recalls  the  “Blissful 
Groves”  of  the  JEneid ,  where  games,  dances, 
and  songs  were  in  order,  or  the  more  sensuous 
picture  painted  by  Tibullus. 

Charus  is  constantly  importuned  to  allow 
the  dead  to  return  and  again  see  the  light  of 
day,  but  he  remains  ever  inexorable.  In  one 
song  he  thus  harshly  rebukes  a  young,  weeping 
girl  who  begs  to  return  and  see  her  little  sister 
for  a  few  years  longer:  “Here  no  such  gift  is 
made.  Do  you  think  you  are  in  a  strange  land 
where  one  can  go  and  come?  You  are  in 
Hades,  my  girl,  where  the  dead  are.  Tell  your 
sister  she  should  not  wait  for  you.  When  the 
sea  stands  still  and  becomes  a  garden,  and  the 
ravens  are  metamorphosed  into  white  doves, 
then  first  may  ye  expect  to  return  to  earth 
again.”  56  However,  against  the  rule  which 
confines  the  dead  below,  we  have  the  Church 
belief  that  between  Easter  and  Whitsunday 
and  again  on  the  Saturday  before  Whitsunday, 
from  midnight  till  dawn,  the  dead  may  revisit 
the  earth.  Attempts  to  get  out  of  Hades  are 

[217] 


GREEK  RELIGION 


recounted  in  several  folk-songs.  In  one,  told 
in  various  versions,  the  attempt  of  three  brave 
youths  to  escape  is  described.  A  lovely 
maiden  beseeches  them  to  take  her  along,  that 
she  may  revisit  her  mother  and  sister  or  her 
child,  who  have  been  left  behind.  The  youths 
at  first  refuse  as  they  are  afraid  lest  the  rustle 
of  her  dress,  the  sheen  of  her  hair,  the  rattle  of 
her  gold  and  silver  ornaments  will  arrest  the 
attention  of  Charus.  But  at  last  she  is  allowed 
to  accompany  them.  However,  Death  meets 
them  on  the  way  and  seizes  them  all.  In  one 
version,  the  young  mother  cries  out:  “Let 
loose  my  hair,  Charus,  and  take  me  by  the 
hand,  and  if  you  will  give  milk  to  my  child,  I 
shall  flee  from  thee  no  more.”  57 

Another  song  records  how  the  hero  Zachus 
rode  down  to  Hell  on  an  iron  horse  with  a 
golden  saddle  in  order  to  visit  his  friends. 
Charus,  at  first,  hides  in  fear,  but  later  wrestles 
with  him  and  is  thrown  thrice.  Finally  Charus 
is,  as  usual,  victorious,  and  compels  Zachus  to 
remain  below.  This  fear  of  Charus  recalls 
that  of  Charon  who,  in  the  JEneid,  is  fright¬ 
ened  at  the  approach  of  Heracles,  whom  he  re¬ 
ceives  without  delay  upon  his  boat. 

As  Pluto  and  Persephone  jointly  rule  Erebus 

[218] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


in  the  Homeric  legend,  so  Charus  and  Charon- 
dissa  rule  it  now.  The  wife’s  chief  duty  now, 
as  queen,  is  to  soothe  the  frightened  new-com¬ 
ers  and  accustom  them  to  forget  their  former 
joys.  A  tent  is  their  dwelling-place,  red  out¬ 
side,  but  black  within,  and  the  tent-poles  are 
the  arms  of  brave  youths,  and  the  ropes  are 
the  woven-plaits  of  maidens’  hair.  At  sunset 
husband  and  wife  sit  at  table  together,  and  at 
this  time  no  one  on  earth  must  annoy  them  by 
bewailing  the  dead.  A  story  from  the  island  of 
Thiaki  (Ithaca)  gives  a  grim  picture  of  their 
ghostly  meal,  since  the  linen  is  black,  the  plates 
are  turned  upside  down,  the  heads  of  children 
lie  upon  the  table,  while  their  hands  are  used 
to  take  the  place  of  knives  and  forks.  Youths 
present  the  cups  and  maidens  delight  the  king 
and  queen  with  their  songs. 

We  see,  then,  that  the  Homeric  conception  of 
Hades  and  its  gloomy  surroundings  continues 
among  the  Greeks  of  to-day  with  many  modi¬ 
fications,  side  by  side  with  Christian  beliefs, 
the  Church  being  quite  unable  to  destroy  it. 

The  foregoing  sketch  has  shown  us  that  the 
religion  of  ancient  Greece  has  not  passed  away 
like  a  dream,  but  that  in  the  Christian  church 

[  219 1 


GREEK  RELIGION 


and  especially  in  its  Eastern  branch  there  con¬ 
tinue  and  survive  modes  of  thought,  institu¬ 
tions,  and  customs  which  are  Greek  rather  than 
Jewish  in  origin. 

Much  of  the  primitive  grandeur  of  the  teach¬ 
ing  of  Jesus  with  its  simple  and  compelling  the¬ 
ology  and  rules  of  conduct  has  undergone  a 
marvellous  transformation. 

In  its  theology  and  ethics,  Christianity  has 
been  profoundly  influenced  by  its  contacts  with 
Greek  philosophy;  in  its  ritual  and  hagiology 
it  owes  an  equal  debt  to  ancient  Greek  religion, 
which  has  also  handed  over  an  enormous  mass 
of  superstitious  beliefs. 

We  have  shown  that  this  influence  was  in¬ 
evitable,  if  Christianity  was  to  make  progress 
on  passing  from  the  environment  of  Palestine 
to  that  of  the  Greek  world.  In  the  resultant 
blend,  Christianity  has  incorporated  pagan  be¬ 
liefs  and  usages,  which,  though  modified,  have 
remained  essentially  Greek  to  this  day.  Much 
of  the  primitive  Christianity  has  been  changed 
or  been  lost  altogether.  But  the  process  of 
fusion  has  been  so  complete,  particularly  in 
the  Eastern  Orthodox  church,  that  its  devotees 
are  both  Christian  and  pagan,  almost  without 


[  220  ] 


AND  ITS  SURVIVALS 


consciousness  of  the  fact  or  of  any  contradic¬ 
tions. 

The  spirit  of  freedom,  of  harmony,  and  of 
happiness  that  characterized  the  religion  of 
pagan  Greece,  outlined  in  our  first  chapter,  has 
by  a  strange  irony  largely  disappeared.  The 
living  legacy  of  ancient  Greece  to  the  Christian 
Church  of  to-day  includes  theological  and 
ethical  concepts,  rites  and  ceremonies,  and, 
also,  alas,  a  great  body  of  unworthy  supersti¬ 
tions.  These  are  so  deeply  rooted  in  the 
folk-consciousness  and  in  the  folklore  that  the 
church  has  not  been  able — even  granting  its 
willingness  to  do  so — to  throw  off  these  Greek 
shackles. 

Ancient  Greece  lives  on  in  Eastern  Chris¬ 
tianity.  Nowhere  else  in  life  is  the  vital  power 
of  imagination  more  strikingly  exhibited  than 
in  the  survivals,  within  the  Eastern  Church,  of 
pagan  theology,  ethics,  and  institutions.  This 
marvellous  phenomenon  is  of  first  importance 
in  religious  history,  and  this  book  aims  to  indi¬ 
cate  the  vitality  and  appraise  the  influence  of 
the  old  upon  the  new,  of  paganism  within 
Greek  Christianity. 


[  221  ] 


NOTES  AND  BIBLIOGRAPHY 


NOTES 


1.  Sophocles,  Fragm.,  226;  Euripides,  Fragm.,  294,  7. 

2.  Iphigenia  among  the  Taurians,  572. 

3.  Plato,  246  D.  Translation  by  H.  N.  Fowler,  in  The 
Loeb  Classical  Library,  New  York,  1919. 

4.  O.  Gruppe,  Griechische  Mythologie  und  Relighnsge- 
schichte,  Munich,  1906;  II,  pp.  1010-1011. 

5.  Odyssey,  XI.  488  ff.  (Translation  by  Butcher  and 
Lang.) 

6.  On  the  Eleusinian  Mysteries,  see  P.  F.  Foucart,  Les 
Associations  religieuses  chez  les  Grecs,  Paris,  1873 ;  id., 
Les  grands  mysteres  d’Eleusis,  Paris,  1904;  H.  K.  E.  de 
Jong,  Das  antike  Mysterienwesen,  Leiden,  1909. 

7.  II.  5.  7. 

8.  Euripides,  Medea,  964. 

9.  Memorabilia,  I.  3.  3. 

10.  Fragm.,  946. 

11.  Plato,  279  B;  Translation  by  H.  N.  Fowler. 

12.  Fragm.,  67 ;  Translation  by  J.  Burnet,  Early  Greek 
Philosophy,  London,  1908  2,  p.  152. 

13.  See  Archives  des  missions  scientifiques  et  litteraires, 
Serie  2me,  V,  pp.  469  ff.  (1868). 

14.  Passow,  No.  242. 

15.  From  daTpairro-}  and  not  from  aarpo--  see  Law- 
son,  p.  72. 

16.  In  Arachova  they  also  explain  rain  by  saying  that 
“God  is  urinating.”  Similarly,  Aristophanes  has  Strepsi- 
ades  say  that  rain  was  caused  by  Zeus  urinating  through 
a  sieve:  Clouds,  373.  The  idea  of  a  sieve  is  still  found 
in  parts  of  Boeotia,  where  the  phrase  “God  plies  his 
sieve”  is  used  when  speaking  of  hail. 

[  225  ] 


NOTES 


17.  Monographic  de  la  voie  sacree  eleusinienne,  Paris, 
1864,  pp.  399  ff. 

18.  Cited  by  Lawson,  pp.  117  ff. 

19.  See  J.  Rendel  Harris,  The  Cult  of  the  Heavenly 
Twins,  Cambridge,  England,  1906,  pp.  96-104. 

20.  Legenden  der  heiligen  Pelagia,  Bonn,  1879. 

21.  Feste  der  Stadt  Athen  im  Altertum,  Leipzig,  1893, 
p.  32. 

22.  “The  Modern  Carnival  ...  in  Thrace,”  in  The 
Journal  )of  Hellenic  Studies,  XXVI.  191-206  (1906). 

23.  Golden  Bough,  VI,  ( The  Scapegoat ),  London, 
1913-15  3,  p.  347. 

24.  On  ancient  incubation,  see  L.  Deubner,  De  Incuba- 
tione,  Leipzig,  1900  2 ;  R.  Caton,  The  Temples  and  Ritual 
of  Asklepios  at  Epidaurus  and  Athens,  London,  1900 2 ; 
C.  R.  Simboli,  Disease-Spirits  and  Divine  Cures  among 
the  Greeks  and  Romans  (Diss.  inaug.),  chapter  II,  pp. 
57  ff.,  New  York,  1921;  Sir  William  Osier,  The  Evolution 
of  Modern  Medicine,  New  Haven,  1922 ;  Mary  Hamilton 
(see  Bibliography). 

25.  VIII.  360  B. 

26.  Voyage  de  la  Grece,  II,  p.  170,  Paris,  1826-27  2. 

27.  On  ancient  divination  see  A.  Bouche-Leclercq,  His- 
toire  de  la  divination  dans  Vantiquite,  I-IV,  Paris,  1879- 
82;  W.  R.  Halliday,  Greek  Divination,  London,  1912. 

28.  See  Rodd,  pp.  184-5. 

29.  De  Sacrificiis,  p.  12. 

30.  Idyll,  I.  15  ff.;  Translation  by  J.  M.  Edmonds,  in 
The  Loeb  Classical  Library,  New  York,  1919. 

31.  Fasti,  IV.  761-2. 

32.  Quoted  by  Rodd,  p.  177. 

33.  Reisen  auf  den  griechischen  lnseln,  Stuttgart,  1845; 
III,  pp.  181  ff. 

34.  K.  S.  Pittakes,  in  Archaiologike  Ephemeris,  XXX. 
648  (1852). 

35.  Galatians,  iv,  9. 

36.  Passow,  No.  512,  9-11  (Translation  by  Lucy  Gar¬ 
nett,  Greek  Folk  Poesy,  p.  81). 

37.  On  the  Dracus,  see  R.  M.  Dawkins,  Modern 

[  226  ] 


NOTES 


Greek  in  Asia  Minor.  Cambridge,  England,  1916,  pp. 
219  ff. 

38.  XII.  20. 

39.  Erinnerungen  und  Mittheilungen  aus  Griechenland, 
1835,  No.  12.  For  the  Cyclops  story  in  Modern  Greek 
folk-tales,  see  Dawkins,  op.  cit.,  pp.  217  and  551. 

40.  Macedonian  Folklore,  p.  75. 

41.  Travels  in  Crete,  London,  1837,  chapter  36;  cf. 
Rodd,  pp.  195-7. 

42.  Travels  in  North  Greece,  London,  1835;  III,  chap¬ 
ter  38,  p.  216 

43.  A  Voyage  into  the  Levant  (English  Translation), 
London,  1718;  I,  pp.  103  ff. 

44.  Epist.  VII.  27.  5-11.  See  L.  Collison-Morley, 
Greek  and  Roman  Ghost  Stories,  Oxford,  1912. 

45.  A  Classical  and  Topographical  Tour  through  Greece, 
London,  1819;  I,  pp.  396-7. 

46.  Voyage  de  la  Grece,  London,  1826-27  2 ;  IV,  pp.  46 
ff. 

47.  Letters  from  the  Levant,  1813,  pp.  109  ff. 

48.  Athens  and  Attica,  Journal  of  a  Residence  There, 
London,  1837  2,  pp.  230  ff. 

49.  Passow,  No.  428. 

50.  Passow,  No.  409;  translated  by  Rodd,  p.  286,  and 
others. 

51.  Passow,  No.  408. 

52.  The  steps  in  the  Greek  theater  which  led  up  from 
the  lower  world,  and  by  which  ghosts  could  enter,  were 
called  “Charon’s  Ladder”;  Pollux,  IV.  132. 

53.  Reise  durch  einige  Gegenden  des  nordlichen  Grie- 
chenlands,  1843,  p.  38. 

54.  Travels  and  Discoveries  in  the  Levant,  London, 
1865;  I,  p.  289. 

55.  Maerchen,  Song  No.  39;  translation  by  Lawson, 

p.  100. 

56.  Schmidt,  Volksleben,  p.  242. 

57.  Passow,  No.  424. 


[  227] 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


A.  On  Ancient  Greek  Religion: 

Adam,  James,  The  Religious  Teachers  of  Greece. 
Edinburg,  1908. 

Campbell,  L.,  Religion  in  Greek  Literature.  London, 
1898. 

Dickinson,  G.  Lowes,  The  Greek  View  of  Life  (Chap¬ 
ter  I).  London,  1907  6. 

Fairbanks,  Arthur,  Handbook  of  Greek  Religion. 
New  York,  1910. 

Farnell,  L.  R.,  Cults  of  the  Greek  States.  I-V.  Ox¬ 
ford,  1896-1921. 

Farnell,  L.  R.,  Higher  Aspects  of  Greek  Religion.  New 
York,  1912. 

Harrison,  J.  E.,  The  Religion  of  Ancient  Greece 
(Primer).  London,  1905. 

Harrison,  J.  E.,  Prolegomena  to  the  Study  of  Greek 
Religion.  Cambridge,  England,  1908  2. 

Hastings,  J.,  Encyclopedia  of  Religion  and  Ethics. 
New  York,  1908-1922:  Aigean  Religion  (D.  G.  Ho¬ 
garth),  I,  141  ff.;  Greek  Religion  (L.  R.  Farnell),  VI,  392 
ff. 

Hyde,  W.  W.,  The  Religion  of  Greece  (in  J.  A.  Mont¬ 
gomery,  Religions  of  the  Past  and  Present,  pp.  244-315, 
Philadelphia,  1918). 

Inge,  W.  R.,  Religion  (in  R.  W.  Livingstone,  The  Leg¬ 
acy  of  Greece.  Oxford,  1922). 

Maury,  L.  F.  A.,  Histoire  des  religions  de  la  Grece  an¬ 
tique.  I— III.  Paris,  1857-1859.  (the  most  readable  his¬ 
tory). 

Meyer,  E.,  Geschichte  des  Altertums,  II-IV.  Stutt¬ 
gart,  1893-1902.  (the  best  historical  account  in  relation  to 
politics,  society,  and  economics). 

Moore,  C.  H.,  The  Religious  Thought  of  the  Greeks 

[  228  ] 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


from  Homer  to  the  Triumph  of  Christianity .  Cambridge, 
Massachusetts,  1916. 

Moore,  G.  F.,  History  of  Religions.  New  York,  1920 2 ; 
I,  pp.  406-539. 

More,  Paul  Elmer,  The  Religion  of  Plato.  Princeton, 
1921. 

Murray,  Sir  Gilbert,  Four  Stages  of  Greek  Religion. 
New  York,  1912. 

Rohde,  E.,  Psyche.  Tuebingen,  1903  3. 

Stengel,  P.,  Die  griechischen  Kultusaltertuemer.  Mu¬ 
nich,  1920  3. 

B.  On  Survivals: 

Abbott,  G.  F.,  Macedonian  Folklore.  Cambridge,  Eng¬ 
land,  1903;  Songs  of  Modern  Greece  (with  Introduction, 
Translation,  and  Notes).  Cambridge,  1900. 

Allatius,  Leo  (Allacci  Leone),  De  Grcecorum  hodie 
quorundam  opinationibus.  Cologne,  1645. 

Bent,  J.  Theodore,  The  Cyclades;  or  Life  among  the 
Insular  Greeks.  London,  1885. 

Delehaye,  Pere  Hippolyte,  Legends  of  the  Saints. 
London,  1907. 

Fauriel,  Claude  Charles,  Chansons  populaires  de  la 
Grece  moderne  (avec  une  traduction  frangaise).  Paris, 
1824-5. 

Frazer,  Sir  J.  G.,  Pausanias’s  Description  of  Greece. 
I-VI.  Reprinted.  London,  1914. 

Garnett,  Lucy  M.  J.,  Greek  Folk  Poesy  (with  anno¬ 
tated  translations).  I-U.  London,  1896;  Greece  of  the 
Hellenes  (Chapter  XIV)*.  London  and  New  York,  1914. 

Hahn,  J.  G.  von,  Griechische  und  Albanesische  Maer- 
chen,  i-n.  Leipzig,  1864. 

Hamilton,  Mary,  Greek  Saints  and  their  Festivals. 
London,  1910;  Incubation:  or  the  Cure  of  Disease  in 
Pagan  Temples  and  Christian  Churches.  London,  1906. 

Hatch,  E.,  The  Influence  of  Greek  Ideas  and  Usages 
upon  the  Christian  Church,  edited  A.  M.  Fairbaim. 
London,  1891  3. 

Lawson,  J.  C.,  Modern  Greek  Folklore  and  Ancient 
Greek  Religion.  Cambridge,  England,  1910. 

[  229  ] 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


v 

Legrand,  Emile,  Recueil ,  de  Chansons  Popidaires 
Grecques.  Paris,  1874. 

Passow,  A.,  Popularia  Carmina  Graeciae  recentioris. 
Leipzig,  1860. 

POLITES,  N.,  Me\er?7  e7rt  rou  /3iou  twv  vewrepw  'EWiJuwy. 
Athens,  1871,  (Summarized  by  fimile  Legrand,  in  La 
mythologie,  neo-Hellenique,  Paris,  1872.) ;  id.,  Hapadoo-eis, 
i-ii  Athens. 

Rodd,  Sir  James  Rennell,  The  Customs  and  Lore  of 
Modern  Greece.  London,  1892. 

Schmidt,  B.,  Griechische  Maerchen,  Sagen,  und  Volks- 
lieder.  Leipzig,  1877;  Das  V olksleben  der  Neugriechen 
und  das  Hellenische  Altertum.  I.  Leipzig,  1871. 

Other  works  are  cited  in  the  Notes. 

In  writing  the  present  book  I  wish  to  express  my  in¬ 
debtedness  to  the  works  of  Abbott,  Hamilton,  Hatch, 
Passow,  Rodd,  Schmidt,  and  especially  Lawson,  which  I 
have  used  freely. 


[  230  ] 


flDut  SDebt  to  d5tme  ant)  lOtorne 


AUTHORS  AND  TITLES 


AUTHORS  AND  TITLES 


1.  Homer.  John  A.  Scott,  Northwestern  University. 

2.  Sappho.  David  M.  Robinson,  The  Johns  Hopkins 
U  niversity. 

3A.  Euripides.  F.  L.  Lucas,  King’s  College ,  Cambridge. 

3B.  Aeschylus  and  Sophocles.  J.  T.  Sheppard,  King’s 
College ,  Cambridge. 

4.  Aristophanes.  Louis  E.  Lord,  Oberlin  College. 

5.  Demosthenes.  Charles  D.  Adams,  Dartmouth  College. 

6.  Aristotle’s  Poetics.  Lane  Cooper,  Cornell  University. 

7.  Greek  Historians.  Alfred  E.  Zimmern,  University 
of  Wales. 

8.  Lucian.  Francis  G.  Allinson,  Brown  University. 

9  Plautus  and  Terence.  Charles  Knapp,  Barnard 
College ,  Columbia  U niversity. 

10A.  Cicero.  John  C.  Rolfe,  University  of  Pennsylvania. 

iob.  Cicero  as  Philosopher.  Nelson  G.  McCrea, 
Columbia  University. 

11.  Catullus.  Karl  P.  Harrington,  Wesleyan  University. 

12.  Lucretius  and  Epicureanism.  George  Depue 
Hadzsits,  University  of  Pennsylvania. 

13.  Ovid.  Edward  K.  Rand,  Harvard  University. 

14.  Horace.  Grant  Showerman,  University  of  Wisconsin. 

15.  Virgil.  John  William  Mackail,  Balliol  College ,  Oxford. 

16.  Seneca.  Richard  Mott  Gummere,  The  William  Penn 
Charter  School. 

17.  Roman  Historians.  G.  Ferrero,  Florence. 

18.  Martial.  Paul  Nixon,  Bowdoin  College. 

19.  Platonism.  Alfred  Edward  Taylor,  St.  Andrew’s 
U  niversity. 

20.  Aristotelianism.  John  L.  Stocks,  St.  John’s  College, 
Oxford. 

21 .  Stoicism.  Robert  Mark  Wenley,  University  of  M ichigan. 

22.  Language  and  Philology.  Roland  G.  Kent,  University 
of  Pennsylvania. 

23.  Rhetoric  and  Literary  Criticism. 

24.  Greek  Religion.  Walter  W.  Hyde,  University  of 
Pennsylvania. 

25.  Roman  Religion.  Gordon  J.  Laing,  McGill  University . 


AUTHORS  AND  TITLES 


26.  Mythologies.  Jane  Ellen  Harrison,  Newnham  College , 
Cambridge. 

27.  Theories  Regarding  the  Immortality  of  the  Soul. 
Clifford  H.  Moore,  Harvard  University. 

28.  Stage  Antiquities.  James  T.  Allen,  University  oj 
California. 

29.  Greek  Politics.  Ernest  Barker,  King’s  College, 
University  of  London. 

30.  Roman  Politics.  Frank  Frost  Abbott,  Princeton 
University . 

31.  Roman  Law.  Roscoe  Pound,  Harvard  Law  School. 

32.  Economics  and  Society.  M.  T.  Rostovtzeff,  University 
of  Wisconsin. 

33.  Warfare  by  Land  and  Sea.  E.  S.  McCartney,  Uni¬ 
versity  of  M ichigan. 

34.  The  Greek  Fathers.  Roy  J.  Deferrari,  The  Catho¬ 
lic  University  of  America. 

35.  Biology  and  Medicine.  Henry  Osborn  Taylor, 
New  York. 

36.  Mathematics.  David  Eugene  Smith,  Teachers  College, 
Columbia  University. 

37.  Love  of  Nature.  H.  R.  Fairclough,  Leland  Stanford 
Junior  University. 

38.  Astronomy  and  Astrology.  Franz  Cumont,  Brussels. 

39.  The  Fine  Arts.  Arthur  Fairbanks,  Museum  of  Fine 
Arts,  Boston. 

40.  Architecture.  Alfred  M.  Brooks,  Swarthmore  College. 

41.  Engineering.  Alexander  P.  Gest,  Philadelphia. 

42.  Greek  Private  Life,  Its  Survivals.  Charles  Burton 
Gulick,  Harvard  University. 

43.  Roman  Private  Life,  Its  Survivals.  Walton  B.  Mc¬ 
Daniel,  University  of  Pennsylvania. 

44.  FolkLore.  Campbell  Bonner,  University  of  M ichigan. 

45.  Greek  and  Roman  Education. 

46.  Christian  Latin  Writers.  Andrew  F.  West,  Princeton 
U  niversity. 

47.  Roman  Poetry  and  Its  Influence  upon  European 
Culture.  Paul  Shorey,  University  of  Chicago. 

48.  Psychology. 

49.  Music.  Theodore  Reinach,  Paris. 

50.  Ancient  and  Modern  Rome.  Rodolfo  Lanciani,  Rome. 


Date  Due 

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